


Stiles' Anatomy: Complications

by JesseCrave



Series: Stiles' Anatomy [2]
Category: Grey's Anatomy, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medical, Based on Grey's Anatomy, F/M, Grey's Anatomy - Freeform, Grey's Anatomy References, M/M, References to Teen Wolf (TV), Stiles as Meredith Grey, Teen Wolf, The Hale Fire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2018-04-28 08:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 67,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5084203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JesseCrave/pseuds/JesseCrave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the devastating news of finding out that his boyfriend has been lying to him, Stiles tries to figure out what his life is without the crutch of his relationship with Derek Hale while still learning how to be the best doctor he can be with the help of his friends and fellow interns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Juxtaposition Of Julia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After dealing with the truth of Derek's secret past, Stiles tries to move on without succumbing to the turmoil that is thrust upon his life. Scott brings up the possibility of seeing Allison outside the walls of the hospital, but is immediately shot down. Lydia finally comes to terms with her pregnancy, ready to tell Peter about their baby, but is blindsided when he ends their relationship. Julia wreaks havoc on the hospital as Stiles learns the true nature of what happened between Julia and Derek.

Throwing back shot after shot of tequila wasn't the way to deal with his problems, Stiles knew that. But it sure didn't hurt things any more than his entire body ached with pain when he thought about Derek. Derek. That's why he kept throwing back the tequila, to numb the flutter of memory that wormed its way into his brain when he thought back on all of his time with the man he loved that happened to be married.

Stiles slammed the empty shot glass on the counter of the bar, beckoning the owner of the bar back over to him with a sloppy wave of his hand. "Hey hey, I'll take another one."

"You might wanna slow down there, champ." The grizzly bear of a man told him, even though he still poured him a shot of amazing anejo tequila. "You been here before? You look crazy familiar."

Laughing one short singular chortle, Stiles nodded. "One time. Seems like forever ago. Worked out amazingly, as if you couldn't tell by my attendance back at this darkly lit, boozy bore." Seeing the hurt look on the bar owner's face, Stiles scrunched up his face in apology. "Sorry, I didn't mean that. The tequila is just kicking in." He furthered his mea-culpa but wildly throwing his hands around when he spoke. "This place is great. I work at the hospital across the street."

"Ahh, a doctor?" Stiles just nodded at the bar owner. "I see. Well, I know that look you've got. Either your boyfriend is riding your ass or your boss is."

"Would you believe me if I said both?" Stiles scoffed. "And both we're great at riding my ass." The look on the bar owner's face would have been priceless if Stiles wasn't already too deep in the bottle. "Was that an overshare?"

"Just a little bit, but I'm used to it."

"My boss is my boyfriend, which was the problem. Now it seems like such a small detail now that I've learned that my boyfriend turned boss has a wife."

"Here." The owner said, pouring him a top shelf shot of tequila as he shook his head and winced at Stiles' misfortune. "This one's on the house, buddy."

A little too greedily, Stiles took the shout, help it up in mock cheers, and tossed it back like his life depended on his body consuming that precious gulp of alcohol, and Stiles didn't care how much he had. Just as long as when he thought of Derek, he forgot who he had been and how much he had meant to him before the mess of marriage made Stiles the dirty little lover boy.

x

"Julia, what in the hell are you doing here?"

Derek spoke to her with newfound rage. How dare she show up in Seattle like nothing had happened between them. And especially, how dare she put Stiles in that position, to find out like that. He had always meant to tell Stiles, in time, once he knew that Stiles would understand, but having to find out like this, by Julia showing up looking like a glossy model off the pages of Vogue magazine? Unacceptable.

"Your hair's different, longer." Julia purred in acceptance. "You actually have bangs, spiked as they are. I love it."

"Yeah, a lot of things are different." He almost spat with malice at her. "Why are you here?"

"Why are you here?" She spat back at him. "You left everything, your house, your job, your friends, without even thinking about it? You had a life in Beacon Hills."

"Had being the important word there."

"And what you have in Seattle is a boyfriend." Julia smirked with judgment. "I knew you were bisexual, but I can't say I'm not still surprised. But he seems charming."

"Don't talk about him." Derek roared, not wanting Julia to even learn his name if he had to hear it being spoken in her twisted tongue. "You're handing from a very thin thread as it is."

"He's young. An intern?" She didn't look angry, just utterly amused. "He's got that 'I'm shacking up with a brilliant brain surgeon' thing all over his face, but still charming. That's what you wanted right?" She smirked again. "The juxtaposition of Julia?"

"If you're here because you want me back, or to work on us, you can forget it and get on the next flight back to Beacon Hills." Derek said, no sympathy evident in any part of his tone and voice.

"Will you relax?" Julia rolled her eyes at the high school sweetheart kind of sentiment. "I didn't fly all the way out here to shove our wedding photos in your face, Derek. I'm here for work. I'm going to be working on the TTTS case that you guys admitted last week and, by the way Alan was talking, you're going to need my expertise."

"Alan?" Derek hated the copper taste talking with Julia was bringing to his taste buds. "Deaton called you out here? He knew you were coming?"

"He begged me to get on the next plane the minute the patient was admitted." She feigned surprise. "He didn't tell you?"

"No, no he didn't tell me."

"Guess you aren't in the running for Chief then if you're not his brown noser with all the info." In her taut little witchy way, Julia came up beside Derek until she was purring into his ear. "The hair though? You know I've always liked men who look like Tyler Hoechlin."

He watched as Julia pounded the lobby floor like it a spotlight was following her around a stage, putting on a show that she had basically just uprooted his entire life here in Seattle, and claimed it as her own.

x

Lydia and Scott were the first to find Stiles at the bar. Granted, they had been already been heading to the car to let loose after the crazy intense day they had just been through, but once they saw him on his way to being totally out there wasted, they knew that something was up with him.

"Damn, Stiles." Scott said as he took a seat next to him, Lydia sitting on the other side of their buzzed friend. "Slowing down sounds great, yeah?"

"At least let us catch up." Lydia laughed.

"Let's play a game." Stiles said, fumbling with his very messy gestures.

"What game?"

"It's a game I just made up. It's called 'Who's Life Sucks More'. I'll win. Tonight, I'll definitely win."

"You don't want to play with me, Stilinski." Lydia scoffed.

"Oh, I do wanna play. Hell, I'll even be the first one to go." Stiles threw back another sip of tequila back before he continued, trying to set his pain ablaze with the sting of alcohol. "Derek's married."

Scott immediately choked on the beer he had ordered, unable to catch a breath at the shocking news Stiles had just delivered to their collective senses. Lydia's eyes were wide in surprise, but she didn't say anything except take a drink of her own beer.

"See? I win."

"Terrible, but you don't win." Lydia shook her head.

"Maybe you misheard me. I said Derek's married. As in, legally wed, to a woman married! Liar, adulterous, lady-loving, even though he was so willing to bottom, wedding chapel, throwing rice in the air at the end level of married!"

Scott left at that moment, receding to go and clean himself up, so he wasn't around for the moment of Lydia's huge secret that she'd been keeping to herself for what felt like so so long.

"I'm pregnant." Lydia chugged her beer for a few seconds while Stiles stared at her with crazy intense irises, even if he was a little foggy reaction wise. "You lose. I win."

Before their talking about her subject matter could take place, the owner of the bar collapsed behind the counter of the bar, shattering glass as he fell, pouring liquor all over himself as he took a tumble and lay unconscious on the floor.

"Okay, maybe he wins."

They both rushed over to him to aid the fallen bar owner, Scott coming over to helping them get the bar owner up as he regained his awareness as they lifted him off of the ground.

"Oh, crap. Sorry you guys, I'm fine. Seriously, I'm fine." He tried to persuade them.

"No, you're not fine." Stiles said. "You don't faint like that, breaking glass on yourself out of nowhere, and end up fine."

"You're going to the hospital, Joel."

"I'm fine!"

"Scott, did you call someone?"

He nodded at Stiles. "Gurney's on its way."

"But I'm alright!"

"You fell on your own dirty floor." Lydia scoffed. "You own this place, so you know how bad the floor is."

"He's radial pulse is strong." Stiles sighed.

"Minor skull contusions." Scott added.

"Who are you sleeping with?"

Lydia gawked at Stiles' question, a laughing scoff spilling forth from her mouth. "You're asking me this now?"

"Why did we not know you were sleeping with someone? We're your friends."

"I'm not waiting." Joel said, getting to his feet before Scott or Stiles could stop him, already rushing out of the door of the bar.

"Joel!"

"Where are you going?!"

He kept walking as he answered Lydia's inquiry. "The hospital is across the street. I can at least make it that far on my own without a damn gurney."

"Following. We should be following." Scott told them, the first of them to run after the bar owner.

Once they were in the safety of the hospital, Stiles ran up next to Lydia in zig zag, his own remedy to try and work the tequila out of his system, even though Joel's sudden collapse was already doing wonders for his sobriety.

"Okay, it's just you and me again. You're pregnant?"

"It's not a big deal." Lydia rolled her eyes, waving him off like it was puny detail of her morning paperwork for a patient, like the crossing of a t or the dotting of an i she had missed the first go around in her scribing in the patient's chart. "It'll be dealt with soon enough. Surgery is everything to me. You know that."

"That still doesn't answer the question of who's baby you're carrying."

Even though she had admitted to Stiles that she was currently with child, she didn't know that she was quite as ready to reveal the sire of her unborn baby just yet. "Just some guy."

"You bring up something like this and that's all I get? Do you really think I'm going to drop the subject just like that?"

"Yeah, that'd be great. Get to work on that."

While someone was helping Joel get admitted into the hospital, the three friends made their way over to the counter in admittance, which just so happened to be manned by the on-call tortured friend of theirs.

Allison honed in on Stiles first, mainly because he smelt like a dive bar. "You're back already? I thought you had a date with McDreamy?"

"You mean McMarried?"

Her eyeballs were tempted to eject themselves from her skull at Scott's words. "McWhat?" Allison pseudo-whispered as her jaw fell on the linoleum.

"I'm only here to make sure Joel is okay." Stiles said, completely avoiding the issue as he messed with his fingertips to avoid their various gazes.

Scott looked worried when he broke the silence Stiles had initiated. "Joel's gonna be okay."

"You think he'll need a surgery?"

No one had time to chastise Lydia for her misconduct thinking, because just at that moment, Derek decided to saunter up to them like some gallant knight. Which they all knew, now that the news had broken, was far from the truth. He was wearing his lab coat, so he was back to working, but he just kept to the medicine.

"He'll definitely need an operation." Derek spurred. "Subarachnoid bleeding, his basilar artery is the size of a blown-up balloon. And his has an aneurysm the size of a ping-pong ball."

"How the hell would you clip that?" Scott mused to himself, still refusing to look at Derek.

"You'd have to have magic fingers to get in to do something like that." Lydia scalded him, feeling like Scott should have known it was utterly impossible to even think about doing.

"Very true. But I was thinking about doing a standstill operation instead."

"A standstill oper-" Lydia began, but was cut off by the devil glares of her friends, gesturing toward Stiles with their heads as the two former boyfriend avoided eye contact with each other. "What? He's talking about a standstill operation."

"Try a standstill operation. At least I'd like to." Derek finally broke his vow and stared at Stiles. "I need overnight labs, a cerebral angio, and some addition patient history though." He hovered the chart over to Stiles, who also went against his self-told words on not looking at him, and the two, for the first time in the few hours that his marriage news had devastated both of them, awkwardly intertwined their eyes.

"I'm too drunk to work."

"Stiles."

The under-the-influence intern fled from the counter then, right as Scott grabbed the chart from Derek's hands and looked over the information Derek had been writing down as the married attending ran after the man that was fleeing from him, the man who he still really cared about.

Lydia pried it from his fingers though, really interested in Joel's potential surgery more so than Scott was worried about his health.

"Lydia…" Scott verbally wagged his finger in her face, a no-no motion in his vocabulary.

"What? Okay, I'm on Stiles side, obviously. But a standstill operation? When do you think the chance for a surgery of that caliber is going to present itself again?"

Stiles had just walked through the automatic doors of the hospital when he heard Derek running after him.

"Stiles!"

"Go away, Derek!"

"I want to talk about this. We need to talk about this!"

Stiles spun around to scream at him face to face. "How about no! Stop following me." He went back to walking away from the hospital and heading into the parking lot.

"Give me a chance to explain-"

"Explain? Are you kidding me?" He had turned back around to face him again as he stood on the edges of the beginning of the parking lot. "You know when you should have felt the need to explain yourself? That night we met at the bar, before any of the stupid memories that were just a small part of this huge lie! You should have explained then, Derek, not when everything's like this!" He refused to let his emotions control him, not letting the tears dare to show themselves in such a vital moment of taking a stand over Derek. "I was falling in love with you, you asshole! But I'm not the man who loved you anymore."

"I understand how you're feeling."

"If you want me to believe that, then you would shut the fuck up, turn around, and get back to work because if you knew exactly what things I was feeling, you'd know that I am seconds away from getting in my car and making you human roadkill!

Derek let Stiles walk away at that notion, Scott blurring past the attending until he was in pace with the still-drunk friend that was fumbling with getting his keys out of his pocket.

"Stiles, give me your keys."

"I'm fine!"

"Stop! I'm taking your keys. I'll drive you home." Scott got a hold of the keys as they walked over to Stiles' jeep.

And Derek just looked on, regret welling within his heart, knowing that he was responsible for the state of mind that Stiles was thriving in right now. And the knowledge of such a fact made Derek sick to his stomach as he steadied himself by placing his hands on his knees to keep from throwing up the dirty misdeed he had done in keeping a secret of this magnitude from the man he had fallen just as hard as the intern had admitted to falling for him.

x

Walking into the Chief's room where he was still quietly recovering from surgery, Derek hadn't expected to find Julia in there. And he really didn't expect to find Deaton and Julia laughing together until they saw him enter, their bubbling hysteria dying fairly quickly after that. Derek just strode into the room and waited.

"Well, I should get back to my hotel." Julia said, eyeing Deaton instead of looking at Derek. "I'll be back in the morning to work on the case. Get some rest, Alan." She playfully swatted his hand. "I mean it."

Not even bothering to look in Derek's vicinity, Julia strutted out of the room and left the two men alone for their potential sparring match. Derek didn't waste any time getting to the vehement feelings he felt for his boss flying out his wife to Seattle.

"What in the hell is she doing here, Alan?"

"Derek, you know as well as I do that Jules is the absolute best in her field, just like you are. Bringing her out here was for the patient. It's nothing personal."

"It's personal to me!"

"Are you forgetting that I'm the Chief of Surgery here? It's not your decision who gets brought in for what. I make the calls here, not you."

"Those calls don't have to include my wife!"

"None of my decisions include your personal life!" Deaton took a breather from the yelling, seeing the throbbing neck vein that was pulsing from Derek's flesh as they both winded down from the heated exchange. "Peter is going to be interim chief until I'm ready to take care of things myself."

"You giving Chief to Peter?" Derek couldn't believe. Half of the reason he agreed to come out to Seattle, aside from getting away from everything that came with his past with Julia, was because Deaton had promised him that when the time was right, Derek could take over as Chief. Even if it was for a short period of time, it pissed him off that it was going to his uncle.

"There's no room for personal feelings when you're Chief."

"And what exactly do you mean by that?"

"How long have you been sleeping with an intern?"

He hadn't been planning on the Chief really finding out about his relationship with Stiles. Maybe eventually, but to find out that he already knew was an entirely different outlook on the previous mentor and student relationship he so enjoyed with Deaton. And Derek could already hear the glass of their friendship shattering in his ears as loudly as a flatline.

"Hmmm, so I guess there is a certain level on personal feelings involved with being Chief."

Deaton rubbed his temples in frustration. "You can close the door from the other side. This conversation is finished."

x

Ramsey entered the interns' locker room, eager to see the look on her interns' faces when she divvied out their assignments to them. They were all finishing getting ready for their official shifts to start and concluding some conversations as she walked in.

"Alright, assignments." She nodded. "Martin, you have discharges. Room E19 is requesting you, McCall. Stilinski, see me after. And who the hell was on call last night?" Allison and Isaac looked between themselves as Ramsey slammed the hoard of charts into their unwanting arms. "Messy. Fix them and they better be finished before you even think about what you want for lunch. Got it?"

"Got it." Isaac said sternly.

Ramsey smiled her feign smile of contentment. "Perfect. Leave."

Everyone except for Stiles left the room then. Stiles, who had been home until his shift started, hadn't slept at all since leaving the hospital that morning. Derek and Julia, Julia and Derek. It'd been swirling around his mind the entire morning. He'd only gotten to the hospital minutes before he was scheduled to be there.

"Someone's gotten a reputation."

Stiles stared back at his resident. "What are you talking about?"

"You've been requested."

x

Peter was going down the hall, going over the list of things he had to do now that he was serving as Chief. He had to admit, he was a little surprised to be granted the position of Chief, even if temporarily, considering the fact that his nephew seemed like the obvious choice. He had to do a whole slew of things he normally wouldn't have to preoccupy his morning with, on top of about twelve calls to return, approve the budget, three staff meetings, and four of Deaton's normal surgeries. And that wasn't even counting his own cardiothoracic consults.

"I guess I should say congrats."

He turned to look over at Derek, the attending sauntering up to him from the little stairwell off to the side where Peter was currently residing.

"It's just temporary." His uncle rolled his shoulders in feign superiority. "I'll only be in charge of you for a few days. Although, I do find it weird that I'm the new Chief when you're the one who operated on him. Clearly he trusts you, so why aren't you Chief?"

"I don't walk to talk about it." He sighed. "And definitely not with my uncle."

"Oh, I'm your uncle now? Since when?"

"Peter-"

They started walking down the hall together as Peter fled from the scene, but Derek wasn't really in the mood for even more people to leave him at the moment.

"And I could have sworn someone talking about your wife being here. Since when are you married? Or is it divorced? I'm still a little new to this family thing."

"Enough." Derek huffed heavily. "Julia and I are separated."

Their amble was halted when Julia came up to them, smiling at Derek before resting her eyes easily on Peter.

"Sorry if I'm interrupting." She grinned, holding out her hand to the new interim Chief. "Julia Hale, Neonatal-Obstetrics."

"Will you stop introducing yourself as Julia Hale?" Derek growled. "Julia Blake is her name, at least until the divorce is final."

"Do you really have to ruin every introduction to someone new with the shadows of our marriage, Derek?"

"It's fine." Peter laughed off the real way he was feeling about the situation. "Clearly you two have…things to talk about."

"No, we don't."

"This isn't about you, Derek." Julia focused back on Peter's features. "I was just coming to make sure that you got the intern-"

"Intern that you personally asked for?" Stiles shuffled up to them, not bothering to stare at Derek whatsoever. "He did." Stiles just stared right for Julia, who just stared back and smiled back eagerly.

Derek looked from Stiles, to Peter, to Julia, and then finally back at Stiles, really wishing that this type of situation was happening to him right then. Peter smiled at the scene and then walked away, leading Derek to do the same until it was just Julia and Stiles, having the stare down of the century while Julia looked very enthusiastic about working together all while the intern looked like he was ready to commit mass homicide at the idea of working with his ex-boyfriend's estranged wife.

x

Inside their patient's room, Stiles was finding it weirdly…weird being Julia's intern. It was one thing to take in the information that Derek had a wide. It was an entirely other state of mind to be working with said wife as her assigned intern for the day.

The woman, their patient, was sitting on her hospital bed as they walked in, awaiting their speech to ensue.

"Hello, Ms. Lofting, I'm Dr. Blake." Julia smiled at their patient. "Alright, Dr. Stilinski, let's define TTTS, please."

"Conjoined fetal twins. Twin-twin transfusion syndrome."

"And what are the twins connected by?"

"Um, I…blood vessels?"

Julia rolled her eyes. "Placental blood vessels, Stilinski, I expect you to know that."

"Someone told me there was a small chance, if any, that could be done to save both of my babies." The patient, Lorna, spoke with weak committal.

"Your babies' condition is almost impossible to fix. Unless you happen to be kick ass surgeon that is one of the few people on the plant on how to accurately separate the blood vessels of fetuses. Which makes today your lucky day because," Julia looked up at the sky, smiling at her achievements. "I happen to be one of those fair few."

"Thank you. When do you start?"

Julia smiled at Lorna. "Your surgery is scheduled for tomorrow. All your other questions can be answered by the very capable Dr. Stilinski, who I hear is one of the hospital's most acclaimed interns, especially among attendings."

The comment caught Stiles off guard, much that his footing slipped on the slick floor, stumbling a little bit, which the patient noticed with ease, looking to Julia for a further explanation on the incident. But Julia walked into the hallway just outside of the hospital room and waved Stiles over so Lorna didn't get the opportunity to ask.

"I could have gotten that answer right if I had been given enough time to do so." Stiles barked at Julia.

"Calm yourself, Stilinski. I'm hard on everyone, not just the man my husband slept with. Get the ultrasound ready and pre-op all of her labs. I'll come by later."

As Julia walked away, Stiles just stood there shaking his head at what exactly his life entailed ever since Julia Hale had descended upon Seattle.

x

"Chief?"

Scott walked into Room E19, as Ramsey has instructed him, only to be quite surprised to see that the room was occupied by the still recovering Chief of Surgery. People were just now really learning that he even had undergone the knife. Scott was even more shocked at the request that Deaton had apparently requested him personally.

"Let's get going, McCall."

"Alright, I can totally do your exams."

Scott went over to him to start checking up on the Chief but his hands were met with the hard steeled no of Deaton's arm blocking any of his wanted actions.

"No, you're not here for that." Deaton pulled him a little closer, so they were face to face. "Listen closely, McCall."

"Is it possible for me to listen close without thinking you're going to kiss me?"

The Chief, realizing that Scott was indeed within make out range, released his grip on him and coughed and grunted, adjusting his position in his hospital bed. "Right, sorry. Anyway, back to business."

"Yes, Sir."

"I have no idea what's going on in my hospital, with my doctors, my patients, as long as I'm confined to this damn bed. You have one the coveted position of being my eyes today, McCall, my ears. Understand? I want you to be me. Know everything about everyone. That's what I need from you today."

"You want me to be you, Sir?"

"Precisely. You'll come back and tell me absolutely everything that you see today, no matter what it is or how secretive it's meant to be. You'll come back to this room, and tell me everything. Leave nothing to secrecy. Got it?"

"So, you want me to be a snitch?"

"The Chief's snitch." Deaton smiled. "Make no mistake. This is an honor, McCall. Get to it."

Scott nodded, running out of the Chief's room in hopes of grabbing some type of news or gossip that would satisfy Deaton's thirst for knowledge surrounding the hospital and the doctors and patients that were housed inside its walls.

x

Lydia ran into the stairwell after Peter. She had watched him enter the stairs housing and since she hadn't had a chance to talk to him in…days. More than anything, she wanted to talk to him about the baby, about what she was planning to do, what she had to do. But she had zero idea on how to bring it up or talk to him about it. They hadn't even been together that long and she didn't even know if they were, like, dating or something.

"Peter." He halted his ascent up the stairs, turning around to see Lydia below him and walked back down the steps to see her. But he didn't say anything. "So what, you're Chief now so you think it's beneath you to talk to me?"

"What do you want, Lydia?"

She wrinkled her nose at the question. "What?"

"What do you want? You don't want to talk about us, you don't want to do anything but use me to get ahead in this program, so tell me what you do want so I can stop wasting my time with an intern who doesn't even know what it is she's looking for."

"I…" She had to do it, right now, right here. She kept telling herself in her head. Tell him. Tell him. "I…"

"You're wasting my time."

He turned to walk back up the stairs, but Lydia caught his arm, spinning him back around and then crushing her lips against Peter's. Without even thinking about it, he pulled her closer to him, letting a hand go to her waist while the other snaked its way around the small of her back, earning him soft moan from the vivacious redhead. They kept kissing, kept exploring each other's bodies in a way that they thought they'd do it forever. But against the wishes of both of them, Peter pulled away from the young intern and stared into the eyes of the woman who was threatening to steal his heart.

"Figure out what you want, Lydia. Because this is what I want. Don't come back until you're sure you can say the same."

Leaving Lydia completely speechless and standing in the stairwell, Peter stormed out of the area and threw open the door. Lydia needed several minutes to collect herself, but finally found the oxygen to continue as she left the stairwell. Leaning over from the set of stairs above them, having heard and seen everything that had just transpired, Scott looked on with wide eyes and an open jaw, shocked at the intimate gathering of the Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery and his fellow intern.

x

"So what did you see, McCall?"

Scott didn't even want to look at Deaton. He couldn't blab about what was going on between Peter and Lydia, right? I mean, everyone was giving Stiles hell for dating an attending, the Chief included from what he had heard, and now Lydia was doing the same thing. At least, that's what it looked like from where Scott had been standing.

"Um…nothing. I haven't seen anything."

"Nothing at all?" Deaton said with dripping disappointment. "No groundbreaking surgeries scheduled on the OR board, no gossip going around the hallways, no news with the nurses, nothing like that?"

"Sorry, Sir. It's pretty quiet today." Scott lied, trying to keep his face from giving him away. "Nothing in the OR or at the nurse's station and definitely nothing going on in the stairwells." Scott laughed lazily. "Nothing at all newsworthy about the stairwells, nope."

"McCall."

"I'll let you know if I see anything else. I mean, anything at all. Because I haven't seen anything, nope, nothing at all." Scott realized that he was rambling and the Chief was looking at him like he knew that Scott knew something more than he was letting on. "I'll be back."

He fled from the Chief's room once again, hoping he could figure out what was going on with Lydia and Peter before he had to tell Deaton about it, or worse, he found out Scott knew about it and he found out anyway.

x

Isaac sat down next to Joel, whom he had gotten to know pretty well since he'd started working as an intern at Seattle Grace. Before he'd really befriended the other interns, Isaac had spent his off days at the Yellow Brick Bar that Joel owned, and he had sort of considered Joel a friend. So when he came into the room Joel had been admitted into, he gave Isaac a smile as he sat down in the chair next to him.

"What are you doing here?" Joel asked, a smirk on his face. "Come to ask me out on a date?"

"Shut up." Isaac laughed. "I just wanted to stop by and see how you're doing."

"Your doctor friends just left." A worried glance replaced the playful tone that had previously been lightening his golden features. "They told me they're going to kill me and bring me back within an hour."

"Forty-five minutes." Isaac corrected. "And it's going to work. Standstills are still a little uncommon, but there's a whole list of successful surgeries that have had the procedure."

"And what about the unsuccessful ones, Isaac? Be real with me. I've looked the other way when you've forgotten to pay your tab for the night, I've ignored the drunk rumblings you've had about your deep dark crush on your roommate that you still don't know what to do about, so just be honest with me. Is this going to work?"

"First of all, don't you dare breathe a word of what I told you that night. I don't want either of my roommates to find out about it until I'm ready."

"Isaac, I'm serious."

"You'll be find, Joel." Isaac let out a hand for Joel to grasp. "Trust me. We've got this."

Joel, minuscule eased of his upcoming operation, smiled up at Isaac and squeezed his hand, glad that he had someone he truly trusted on his side during the entire standstill operation that Derek and Peter were going to work together to perform.

x

Back inside of Lorna's room, Stiles was setting up the ultrasound that Julia had ordered and was working on getting Lorna ready for the procedure. He asked her to lift up her shirt so he could see her stomach, all while she was giving him these crazy intense eyes that were of unknown origin to him.

"It'll just take a second, Lorna." He smiled at her brightly, but he could tell by the angry slit of her eyes that she wasn't feeling the same sentiment as he was sending her way.

"How do you justify going after a married man?"

Floored, Stiles stood there with the ultrasound wand in his hand and staring at Lorna with a shocked blank expression settling against his round face. "Excuse me?"

"My husband did the same thing, flitted off with a younger, sluttier version of me." Lorna scoffed, keeping her eyes on Stiles. "I was three weeks pregnant when he left me for her." While she had started her speech, Stiles had ignored the slap in the face and had splashed the gel on her stomach and was trying to get the ultrasound over with. "That gel is Titanic water cold, you know."

"Sorry." Stiles nodded. "And I'm sorry your husband did that to you."

"Are you sorry for what you're doing to Dr. Blake?"

Deciding to take the high road instead of yelling at the woman interfering with his personal life, the intern just kept working on the ultrasound. "It'll just be a little longer."

"I would have done the same thing, you know. Asked to work with you, I mean."

Stiles stopped and just smiled at her. "I'll be back in a little bit. I'm going to go check on your labs."

Stiles left the room with whatever dignity he had left, wishing more than anything that he could just delete the last few months like it was trash bin on his computer and he could just forget that this sad existence was his life.

x

Walking by Joel's new room, Lydia sprinted in. Not because she was planning on visiting him or anything, but because she had to puke and she didn't want to do it on the surgical floor. She burst into his room and then knocked down the door almost to get into the bathroom in time to throw up.

"Well, hi to you too."

Lydia let Joel's comment go as she finished expelling the bile from her body and flushed the toilet eagerly. Exiting the bathroom, She just set her eyes on Joel as soon as she wore a grimace of absolute terror. "In case you need me to tell you, what you overheard last night at the bar, you don't tell anyone. I mean it. If I hear that you've told someone about Stiles or me or Stiles and McDreamy, I will murder you and make it look like an accident."

Right then, Peter, of course, decided to amble into the room in his superior, effortless way that he seemed to bear, looking from Joel to Lydia and then back again.

"Hello, Dr. Hale." Joel smiled.

"Joel." Peter stared back at the intern, but she didn't want to hear the next words out of her mouth for fear of him finding out what she had been doing there, so she did the only thing she could think to do. Which was present the case to Peter, since she had been assigned to Joel's case earlier.

"Vital signs were stable through the night. Today's CT showed the absence of bleeding." The waves of nausea were making themselves known once more within Lydia's frame, and she staggered a little as she closed her eyes and tried to continue. "EKG normal as far as sinus rhythm. No dysrhythmias, no ischemia."

"Good." Peter grinned down at Joel. "Page me if anything changes, Dr. Martin."

Lydia nodded at him as he left, Joel sending her knowing glares her way that stopped once she mimicked the action of cutting her throat at the bartender, silencing him at once when he looked into the dagger irises of the woman who was carrying an attendings baby.

x

Staring down at the joyous scene of newborn babies, Scott was thinking about everything that he had seen and heard during his time in the stairwell. The fact that Lydia and Peter were…getting close wasn't that shocking, especially since Stiles had been doing the same thing, but what made it all the mare difficult to deal with was the understanding that he couldn't talk to anyone about it for fear of the mess he would create.

And he must have been audibly have been talking to himself about his personal turmoils, because Stiles came sluggishly over to him, smirking and saying, "Have you resorted to talking to yourself now?"

Scott scoffed. "No. I'm a terrible snitch. I should be awarded the Razzie on snitching."

"Why are you snitching?"

"The Chief. Deaton, I mean." Scott looked over at Stiles, who, in spite of the current events, looked like he was holding up pretty well considering. "You look…okay."

"I'm trying." Stiles breathed out impatiently. "Which is harder said than done because my ex-boyfriend's wife looks like freaking Jessica Lowndes from the 90210 reboot."

"So it's official then? Ex-boyfriend?"

"I'm a slutty mistress." Stiles said. "The other lover."

"It's not your fault. You didn't know."

"Still, I'm the secret lover boy. I'm a dirty paramour."

"I love their music."

Stiles rolled his eyes at Scott's weak attempt at humor. "What are you muttering about anyway?"

"Nothing." Scott said, looking back at the newborn children and their innocent, yet-to-be-ruined happiness.

"Come on, Scott. I'm right here within muttering listening range."

"Okay, but you can't say anything. Do you know why, any reason at all for why Lydia would be kissing Peter?"

x

Lydia, still feeling sick, was in the elevator, waiting to get to the surgical floor. The doors opened and she immediately saw Stiles waiting for her there, presumably hearing that she was heading back up to check on Joel. He had his arms crossed over his chest and he wore a look of disdain and anger that she couldn't quite place.

After she had stepped out of the metal chamber, Stiles had attacked her with accusations and questions about what Scott had seen in the stairwells.

"How could you not tell me after everything you knew about me and Derek? All those warnings about being with an attending and you were sneaking around with Peter?"

They rounded a corner and Lydia just rolled her eyes as they kept walking. "It's different."

"Bullshit."

"It is, Stiles. You and McDreamy are together, you're in a relationship."

"Were, we were together. And this isn't about me and Derek. So what does that mean you and Peter are in then?"

"I don't know, Switzerland." Lydia shrugged. "It's neutral and they have amazing cheese there."

"Are you even going to tell Peter that you're carrying his baby?"

She couldn't handle this. Lydia was already dealing with enough without having Stiles jumping down her throat about what they had talked about at the bar. It was bad enough that Scott had seen her and sold her out to Stiles without even talking to her about it first. She was in no place to deal with Stiles' line of questioning right now.

Lydia stopped walking to stare directly into her friend's dark eyes. "Stiles, I shared something with you at the bar because, honestly, I wanted to best you and your admittedly terrible love life situation, but I'm not like you. We don't need to go down this path of swapping war stories and comparing wounds. I'm dealing with this okay? My way, on my time."

"Then why did you tell me? Why take the time to admit to me what you were going through if you didn't on some level want to share the burden of the secret with?"

Having enough of her excuses, Stiles walked away from his friend and fellow boss lover and decided to let her have the space she was so keen on having, forgetting that they were even confiding in each other at all like they had back at the bar.

He made his way back to his patient's room, getting back into the swing of things medically and performing the ultrasound again on Lorna. She kept going on about what her husband had done to her, and Stiles was being nice. He wasn't saying anything mean or doing anything besides nodding and keeping an extremely professional façade about him.

"Fifteen years, I was married to that man. And he was so willing to toss that accomplishment in the trash over some woman that answered his phones for a living." Lorna scoffed. "That's why her car ended up getting keyed."

Focusing on nothing but the ultrasound, Stiles remained vigilant and silent. That's when he saw something on the ultrasound monitor that looked off. He clicked away at the keyboard attached and got a closer look at the woman's womb. He knew something was wrong. Stiles just looked at Lorna and then back at the monitor, wondering how long he should wait before telling Julia about what he had discovered.

x

"I didn't know you had the balls to do something like that."

Julia rolled her eyes at her husband's comment. "Oh, get over it, Derek. He comes highly recommended by everyone on the staff."

"Right." Derek said. "That's exactly why you asked for Stiles to be your intern for the day."

"Are you saying you don't recommend him?" The look on Derek's face was crack to Julia's ego. She was glad to see that she was bothering him so much after he had upped and left their life back in Beacon Hills.

"Did I say that?" He sighed.

"So, what you're saying is you recommend him, but not for his medical skills. Maybe you recommend him for a satisfying orgasm."

"Just shut the hell up, Julia."

Not that he liked to see the scene of his ex-boyfriend talking heatedly with his wife, but Stiles had to admit it gave him comfort to see it as he walked up to them, interrupting their rage-filled exchange in an instant.

"Dr. Blake."

"What is it, Stilinski?" Julia sighed, mirroring her husband's earlier action.

"I found something on the ultrasound. I did some labs and they confirm what looks like abnormalities. I think it's bilateral pleural effusion with evidence of sub-Q edema."

"That means we need to get in the OR." Julia smiled at him, giving one last glance at Derek before she gave Stiles a nod. "Alright. Let's go."

Stiles let her pass him through the open doorway he had entered through. He made the mistake of making eye contact with Derek as he went to leave, which caused the attending to think it was okay for them to speak to one another.

"Stiles. Stiles, just-"

"Don't, Derek. Please don't."

Derek watched as Stiles left him yet again, as he seemed to do over and over now that he knew the truth. And he wanted nothing more than to take back the hurt he had caused Stiles to live through.

x

In Joel's OR, it seemed like the entire hospital was housed in the gallery to watch their favorite bartender's standstill operation surgery. Everyone seemed to have a story to tell about their encounter's with Joel at the Yellow Brick Bar, something that had humbled the bartender into calming himself enough for the surgery. Derek and Peter were working together on the surgery, already have induced hypothermia to keep the tissue viable until they restored the blood they had drained from Joel's body.

They were operating diligently, and Peter couldn't take the silence anymore. "So, Derek, what's your Joel story?"

"I went to the bar the night before I started working here." Derek said candidly. "I'd only been in town for a couple of days, didn't know anyone, definitely didn't know you were coming to town." Peter ignored the comment as they continued to operate and as Derek droned on. "I met someone there, this really cute guy. We got drunk. We started something." Derek sighed, thinking back on all the good times, and bad, that had happened since he'd met Stiles at the bar. "Regardless of what happened, it was an amazing start to my new life in Seattle."

"Hmm, if you're gay, how come you have a wife?" Peter nodded, not accusatory, just simply stating a fact. Stares surrounded the room as Derek felt eyes beaded into the side of the attending's skull.

"I'm not gay." Derek shook his head. "Bisexuality is a real thing. So is bisexual erasure, as evident by your reaction."

"I was just curious, Derek. You know, I do want to know you. Even if you're not ready, it's something I want. For the both of us."

"I know." Derek said, slightly smiling at his estranged uncle. "Give it time."

Feeling a little closer than they had before stepping into the operating room, Peter and Derek worked together to save the life of everyone's favorite bar owner, all while hoping that they could have a real family relationship after everything was all said and done.

In the gallery, Allison and Scott were some of the few people who had turned out to look on over Joel's surgery. They were talking to each other quietly, seeing that both Stiles and Isaac were absent from the watching, Lydia being in the OR assisting with the attendings and Ramsey.

"You were there when he collapsed, right?"

"Yeah." Scott nodded. "It was pretty scary. But I'm great under pressure."

"Apparently." Allison smiled back, grinning from ear to ear.

"So, listen." Scott paused to clear his throat. "About what happened the other day, about what Lydia said-"

"Scott, we don't have to-"

"Allison, I like you, okay?" The blurting of his feelings was a little eyebrow raising to the gorgeous brunette intern. She couldn't say anything more to that except wait for Scott to go on. "I mean, if you wanted, maybe we could go out on a real date."

The weight of the situation wasn't lost on Allison, so much so that she looked back at Scott with a sincere smile before shaking her head. "Scott, I do like you. You're a great guy, but everything with Ramsey…"

"Totally." He acted like he had expected such an answer, or at the very least had thought about the same thing prior to this conversation. "I get it. It's too…"

"Right." Allison laughed nervously. "But friends?"

"Of course."

He beamed at her, while hiding the true shame he held for being rejected by the woman he truly did care for.

x

Following Peter into the on-call room after Joel's successful surgery, Lydia was wide-eyed with amazement at the operation she had just witnessed and assisted with. She closed the door behind her as Peter finished getting dressed. He had had a few minutes to himself before Lydia has burst through the door.

"Hands down, that was the most amazing surgery. Ever! You're like God, you know? Like, you killed someone and then you literally poured the blood back into his body that brought him back to life. The rush…" She stopped to laugh. "It's amazing."

"It is." He nodded lightly, not looking at her like he was fully feeling like she was at that moment. "The rush is definitely something."

"I was thinking," Lydia made her way over to Peter, grazing her fingers across the pattern on his maroon sweater. "Maybe we could grab a reservation downtown somewhere."

"Lydia."

"Peter, I'm saying that's what I want." She smiled up at him. "I'm saying yes."

"There's something we need to talk about."

He had found out. He knew about the baby. No, he couldn't, could he? Lydia tried to shake those feelings away. Even if he didn't know, he deserved to. This was the moment. She had to tell him.

"You're right. There is something."

"It's obvious."

Usually so poised, he caught her by surprise. "It is?"

"We were kidding ourselves, weren't we? Thinking that there would be nothing standing in our way while we did this." Peter scoffed so loud, it rang off the walls and into Lydia's ears. "The Chief…he found out…I found out through Deaton about Derek and Stiles and he's looking for blood…"

"Peter, what Stiles and Derek did-"

"We have reputations to uphold here." He went on. "Careers that need thriving, or in your case, need beginning. Both of us put our work above anything else, that's why we're so much alike. You're focused. It's one of the many things I admire about you."

"Okay…" Lydia didn't have any idea where this conversation was leading. But Peter was just staring at her, like he was waiting for her to draw her own conclusion so that he didn't have to talk about it. That's when it hit her like a truck going over a hundred. "Oh, you're…you're ending this."

"I think it's best, don't you? Before it gets-"

"Messy." She laughed lightly. "Yeah, I…I completely understand." Her words didn't match her thoughts though. This was already too messy. Peter just didn't know how much mess there was between them. "Right, messy would be bad."

"It's nothing personal. What we…I just think it's better for both of us to take what happened to Stiles and Derek as a warning."

"Understood."

She smiled at him, turning and leaving the on-call room, silencing any other conversation from the attending before it could cut her any deeper than the pain she was feeling, her life turning upside down in absolutely every scenario possible.

x

"See? I told you I was the best."

Julia was sitting down next to Lorna back in her room after surgery while Stiles stood off to the side, listening in while the attending did all the work with the patient.

"And my babies are going to be alright?"

"They're going to be fine. They're doing better than expected, actually. And Dr. Stilinski will be back to check up on you if you have any questions or anything." Julia stood up, preparing to leave the room and take Stiles with her, but Lorna's dagger of dialogue stopped her.

"Sorry, but I was actually hoping you could assign a different intern to my case." Lorna eyed Stiles then. "I want Dr. Stilinski off my case."

"Is there a problem I don't know about here?" Julia looked to Stiles for an answer, but he just stood there shaking his head, wishing that Lorna would let his personal life go.

"He just reminds me of someone I can't stand, someone my husband loves to have kneel at his feet." Lorna nodded at Julia. "You get it."

The neonatal attending shook her head breezily. "No, I'm afraid I don't 'get it'."

"He slept with your husband, right?"

Without missing a beat, Julia stared intently at Lorna, her eyes alleviating the tenseness she had held within her since her arrival to the hospital. She locked onto Lorna's eyes, opening her mouth to speak with the vigor of an entire nation.

"Ms. Lofting, I don't have the type of patience or class that Dr. Stilinski has displayed if you've been giving him this sort of strife all day today, so let me make one thing very clear. My husband didn't cheat on me, I'm the one that cheated on him. So the wrong person, the victim here? Is Dr. Stilinski. So you better shut your mouth, find some mea culpa inside your brain, and deliver one hell of an apology to Stiles once I leave this room."

Julia sauntered out of the room like she was burning the floor as she walked, all while Lorna looked humiliated and Stiles stared off into space in disbelief over the instant change of dynamic between what he thought was fact between him, Derek, and now Julia.

x

Stiles, after learning of the nature of why Derek had left Julia and refuged to Seattle, had agreed to meet Derek at his trailer on his land, just to hear what he had to say. They weren't getting back together, Stiles had to keep reminding himself of that nature. Derek was sitting on his porch while Stiles leaned his back against his jeep, listening on to Derek spin his sordid tale of adultery.

"I got home, and instantly I can feel in the air that this isn't like every other night. Something's changed, different." Derek stopped his utterance by taking a sip of his favorite beer for a split second. "So I go upstairs, like I would on any other night. As I'm heading toward our bedroom, I prepare myself, because I step on man's jacket that isn't mine. Everything shifts into place for me in that moment. I know that the jacket, while it isn't mine, it's one that I recognize, one I got for the owner last Christmas." Derek huffed, taking another swig of his beer. "So I know that when I walk into the bedroom that I share with my wife, I know that I'm not just going to see that my wife is cheating on me, but that's she's cheating on me with my best friend, Jackson." Stiles just watched as tears welled against Derek's eyes. "It was so dirty and disrespectful and damaging. So I left when Deaton called me about a position opening up, and I found my way to Seattle."

"And then you met me in a bar."

Derek smiled, nodding. "Yes, and then I met you in a bar."

"What were we?" Stiles lifted up from resting on his jeep to stand a little closer to Derek. "Was I just the guy you messed around with to avoid dealing with being messed around on?"

"Stiles, you were my oxygen." Derek said, his eyes bubbling over with sincerity and guilt, something Stiles had to make a mental note of later for when he was replaying this conversation when he went to sleep for the night. "Like I was being buried alive and you saved me."

A few moments passed between them as they locked their eyes on one another. It would have been so easy for Stiles to just grab Derek's hand, take him inside, and forget what had happened, forget that Julia had shown up and changed everything between them. It would have been so simple. It might have even been what Stiles wanted to do. But it wasn't right. And things weren't easy anymore.

"It's not enough."

Stiles got back into his jeep as he saw Derek toss the beer bottle into the woods in anger and frustration, both of them knowing that there wasn't even the slightest chance for them to make up, not now, maybe not ever.

x

Walking back into the Yellow Brick Bar, Lydia found Stiles just as she had found him the night before. He was sitting at the bar, knocking back tequila shots. At least this time, it looked like he had just gotten then himself and had just started drinking. She sat down next to him, plopping down on the stool beside of him as he looked over at her, setting down his empty shot glass on the bar's counter. Things hadn't gone so well between them the last time they were together, so Stiles wasn't sure what to say. Luckily, Lydia was the first one to break their mutual silence.

"The clinic I went to," Lydia said, waving over the bartender and ordering a beer. "They have this policy or whatever. Unless I had an emergency contact person, they wouldn't even let me mark the appointment down for good. The person is just someone to be there, in case something happens, and to help me home…after." Lydia looked incredibly forlorn as the bartender set down her beer for her and she threw some cash down on the counter for him, giving him a quick thanks before sipping on the beer and looking back at Stiles. "You know what this is about, the whole dating your boss thing. You know. That's why I told you and only you why I'm pregnant. I put your name down. You're my person."

"I am?" Stiles said, clearly honored but also taken aback at the honest portrayal Lydia was giving him. "What about Allison?"

"It's you, Stiles. You get it. You're my person, alright? Whatever."

A smile on his lips as Lydia tossed back a huge gulp over her beer, Stiles just nodded. "Yeah. Whatever."

A look of defeat glazed across Lydia's face when she finished her beer, the glass banging on the bar counter loudly in front of them. "He dumped me."

Knowing the feeling all too well, Stiles laced his arm with hers as they shared a very rare tender moment, Stiles laying his head on Lydia's shoulder as a single tear slid down the axis of the redhead's skin, holding onto Stiles just as hard as she was holding onto him.

"You know, this is sort of like hugging. I'm against hugging."

Stiles racked his chest with laughter. "Shut up. I'm your person."

They just sat there together, knowing that they at least had one person to fall back on that knew the inner workings of what they were going through. And knowing that they had someone to go to on the hardest days of their personal lives was enough for them to know that they could keep going, no matter what complications seemed to arise.


	2. I'm A Black Hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The whole staff of Seattle Grace deal with a family of car crash victims, only to learn that darker familial ties lie within their history. Stiles is confronted once again by Derek's pleas to understand, but the young intern can't let himself turn into the intern that cares, the same not being able to be said for Lydia as she deals with further working with Peter, especially when his reign as interim chief makes its waves across the hospital.

Finally feeling like his stomach was settling from the onslaught, Stiles decided to lay down on the bathroom floor in a stance of reprieve from upheaving everything except his knowledge of who he was. He wasn’t wearing any clothes except for a really tight pair of red boxer briefs with white trim, a pair he called his “lifeguard” underwear. As he felt the cool refreshing feel from the bathroom’s tile against his bare back, he looked up at the ceiling before he spoke to Lydia. She was laying in the empty bathtub, her mascara already had run a mile down her face that she hadn’t bothered to wipe away since she had gone out dancing with Stiles hours prior to their current situation. Lydia didn’t say a word, just looked out into the nothingness of Stiles’ bathroom when he started to talk again.

“I’m telling you, it’s them. They’re the problem. Them and their stupid…boy penises. Gave me absolutely no inkling about them being married. They don’t give you any kind of heads up that it’s going to be over, just like that, like it meant nothing.” He droned on.

Lydia shifted in the bathtub, wearing Stiles’ Dartmouth sweater and her own pair of lace panties. Ever since they had bonded at the Yellow Brick Bar, the two had been pretty inseparable. And talking about their issues with the Hale men was an often occurrence between the two struggling interns.

“No, it’s not that Peter ended it between us, it’s how he went about it. Like I was a patient on the receiving end of an explanation about my surgery. Like it was a business thing, like he’s the boss of me.”

“Peter…is the boss of you.” Stiles nodded lazily.

“Even worse than him ending it,” Lydia ignored her friend. “Is the fact that I care.”

“Oh, God. Tequila’s coming back up.” Crawling back to the toilet, Stiles opened the lid as he prepared to throw up once again from the downing of tequila he had initiated in earlier while he and Lydia were out dancing. But as soon as he felt it rising within him, it subsided. “Maybe not.”

“And you’re wrong about the penises. It’s these damn hormones welling within me. It’s the damn estrogen.”

“My problem is tequila.”

“Before him, I was such a professional, you know? I was by the book, never straying from procedure. And what does he do? He screws me over by knocking me up.”

“Knocking you up with the stupid boy penis!” Stiles slurred.

Once again, Lydia just talked it out without really addressing what Stiles was saying before her. “It’s just so unfair. My hormones are in full swing because of him. He destroyed me and turned me into this…stupid, unprofessional, pregnant girl…who cares!” Lydia shook her head violently, slumping down deeper into the tub. “Estrogen.”

“It’s the penises.” Stiles nodded again, sitting up and leaning against the bathroom wall as Isaac and Allison rushed in to start getting ready for work, Stiles’ sobriety returning quicker than he would have liked. He regarded them with a gaze that they mirrored as he pointed a finger at them. “Penises, you guys.”

“No, it’s estrogen.” Lydia countered, not bothering to look at them as she curled up in the bathtub.

Isaac just looked at them like they were crazy. Drunk and crazy. “Am I missing something?”

Ignoring him at first, Allison handed both Lydia and Stiles a bottle of water, ones that they took with heavy gratitude. “When I got off last night, it was puke-a-palooza.” Allison told Isaac with a wincing grin. “Stiles officially ended it with Derek and Lydia’s been sleeping with Peter!”

“Yeah, I knew that last part.”

Pushing through to the sink to brush his teeth, Isaac smirked at the look of horror on Allison’s face at the notion of him not telling her something as scandalous as Lydia also shacking up with an attending. Allison joined Isaac at the bathroom sink and started to brush her teeth as well, her eyes resting on the naked form that was her landlord / roommate.

“Is it really over with Derek? Even after what he told you?”

Stiles didn’t have the energy to join in on Allison’s question. He felt…weird. Especially when his friends were bringing up the thought of him forgiving Derek for his white hot betrayal. He didn’t even really know how Allison had found out about his little meeting in the woods with Derek on his property where he had explained the details of the adultery. But he couldn’t focus on any of it. Because he felt so lost.

“I feel like there’s a void inside of me.” Stiles finally said.

Isaac snickered. “Puking up your entire life’s meals will do that, or so I’ve heard.”

“No.” Stiles shook his head, feeling the shocking wetness of tears welling against his eyes. “I feel…empty.”

Allison and Isaac shared a look of worry that carried them the entire way to the hospital. No one really spoke. Lydia had sat up front while Stiles drove, both of them holding hands the whole way there, furthering the concern that the other two were sharing in the backseat for their friends’ collective well-being.

But when they got out of Stiles’ jeep, they knew things were about to get even worse. Because Derek was waiting for them just outside of the hospital. Stiles and Lydia lead them over to the hospital’s entrance, where Derek fell in step with them, trailing Stiles expectantly.

“Go away, Derek.”

“What?”

“You’re stalking me.” Stiles scoffed. “You’re a stalker.”

Lydia sped up away from the confrontation, retreating inside the confines of the hospital as Isaac and Allison kept a safe distance behind the pair as their squabble continued.

“I thought we had a good conversation last night, and then you just up and left.” Derek explained himself, alluding to why he had been waiting for Stiles to arrive.

“Yeah, I heard you. You found your wife and your best friend screwing in-between your Egyptian cotton sheets.”

“Then you heard the part where after that, my relationship with Julia was over. For good.”

Stiles rolled his eyes as he reached the entrance of their workplace. “It’s not enough.”

“How can the fact that Julia means nothing to me anymore not be enough?”

Reaching his limit with his conversation with Derek, Stiles turned around right as he was about to walk through the front doors of the hospital. He watched as Allison and Isaac also stopped walking, hanging back away from them so they could have their space to spat. “It’s not enough because you waited two whole months to tell me that you even had a wife, no matter what happened between the two of you. And because my life couldn’t suck any worse, I found out by her showing up like a fucking Victoria Secret model, strutting around in Seattle to rub your marriage license in my face. When you decided to keep that to yourself, it ruined everything. I’m a black hole now, swirling around angry, taking your excuses and sending them to another dimension. So unless you’re here to study my science, keep the hell away from me and leave me alone!”

He stormed into Seattle Grace Hospital then, his friends cautiously walking past the frozen-in-place Derek as they too made their way inside, following Stiles as he headed toward the elevators.

“He probably could have made a better analogy.” Isaac scoffed to Allison.

“He’s got a hangover, cut him some slack.”

x

Ramsey rounded up her interns fast once they had all arrived at the hospital. Once they were all rounded together like cattle ready for the slaughter, she took them all to the ambulance bay where there was a patient waiting for them. The medic hopped out of the back of the ambulance and started to spew her schpeel for what they needed to know.

“55-year-old male victim of a head-on collision. Depressed skull fracture, GCS is three, multiple internal injuries. ACLS protocol was started but he blew a vein on the way here so we’ve been pushing meds. PEA on arrival.”

“How long has he been down?” Ramsey inquired.

“Twenty minutes of CPR plus the twenty minutes it took to get him out of the car.” The medic shook her head. “It’s not looking good.”

Ramsey scoffed at her. “He’s still alive until we say so. Lahey, take this guy and save his life.”

“But he’s gone.”

“Not until we do everything can.” Ramsey said as they made their way from the ambulance bay to the trauma portion of the emergency room. “Lahey, take him to Trauma 1.”

“Again, he’s dead.”

A severe snarl on her lips, Ramsey blared crimson red through her eyes when they met the frame of her less than muscled intern. “What the hell did I say?”

Eyes rolling like a tumbleweed, Isaac wheeled his patient into the trauma room that had been designated to him. While he was attending to his patient, Scott, Allison, and Lydia were trucking over to the second ambulance for their own set of patients.

“Stilinski,” Ramsey shouted while he watched his friends opening up the other ambulance. “Get in there with Lahey and make sure he doesn’t keep that patient dead.”

Not willing to argue with his resident with everything else going on, Stiles just have her a quiet nod and made his way into the trauma bay with his roommate. But when he got in there, Isaac was just standing around overlooking the staff trying to help him out, awaiting his orders for them.

“Isaac.” Stiles beckoned his friend, but the slight shake of the curly-haired man showed his self-manufactured reluctance.

“He’s dead, Stiles.” Isaac did his best to remain a professional, ordering everyone to get ready to shock the patient when in walked Reyna, who Isaac hadn’t talked to since they had swapped a sexually transmitted disease. “Reyna?”

“Isaac…” She clearly, by the jagged shock on her gorgeous alabaster face, hadn’t expected to be seeing her ex-hook-up so soon after the debauchery that abruptly ended they’re tawdry affair. “I didn’t-”

“The line’s in, he’s ready.” Stiles interjected, looking from Reyna to Isaac for what he thought he should do next, since Ramsey had given him the lead and the patient.

“Uh, right, charge to 200.”

“200.” Reyna said, taking over for the other nurses in the room.

But nothing changed with the patient, much to Isaac’s immediate told-you-so attitude.

“Again.” Stiles uttered when Isaac just stood there without saying another word of instruction to the entire room. “Come on, charge to 300 and push one of epi.”

“Stiles-”

“Dr. Ramsey wants you to do everything you can, Dr. Lahey.” Reyna countered, agreeing with Stiles.

“What she said, ‘Dr. Lahey’.” Stiles sent a wickedly sarcastic sneer in Isaac’s direction, one he contrasted with a look of disgust at Stiles seemingly siding with Reyna.

Kicking back into gear and feeling like he wore his medical degree on his chest, Isaac cried, “Shock him. 300.”

Back outside, the rest of the interns were getting the details on the next patient in the ambulance they had run up to, per their resident’s demand all while the medic droned on with the delivery of the patient’s current standing.

“Forty-six year old male, driver of the car that jumped lanes. Tachycardic and BP’s eighty over palp. Two liters of LR running wide open. Significant abdominal tenderness.”

“History?” Ramsey pleaded to know as she oversaw her interns.

“Bad liver, wife says he’s on the list.”

“Abdomen’s rigid. Argent, he’s yours.”

“Yes!” When Allison saw everyone’s face, she cleared her throat and just nodded. “I mean, right away, Dr. Ramsey.”

With the flickering of your wrist and the somersaulting of her eyes, Ramsey went on. “McCall, you take the son. Mom’s yours, Martin.” She eyed them all evenly. “Films in fifteen minutes or it’s scut all around. Got it?”

Each of her interns hurried away in a flash of movement, bringing a delightful sly beam to the young resident’s face as she went to walk away but was stopped by another medic approaching her with heavy, gaining steps.

“We got another one back here for you, Doctor.” He handed off the chart to her capable hands.

“Another accident victim?”

The man she was referring to was a portly man, but admittedly strikingly handsome in the way that one wouldn’t have expected. All hard edges on his face that constructed his marble features while the rest of him was left to soft curves and the perfect body type for cuddling.

“Bowel obstruction.” The medic finally said as Ramsey skimmed over the chart with her already strained eyes from the knowing that this day was going to be one that hung over her with stress. “He refuses to say what he’s swallowed, but it looks like he’s packing, and heavy by the way the films look.”

As the medic started his trek away from the ER, Ramsey rolled her eyes, heading towards the patient as she thought about how stupid people were when it came to moving drugs around. On her way to her newly idiotic patient, she stopped in the trauma room where Isaac and Stiles were continuing their collective attempts to raise the dead.

“Good, pericardiocentesis.” Ramsey nodded at Isaac, who once again was at the helm of the procedure, as she had intended. Knowing everyone’s business, Ramsey had to hide her sly knowing when she spotted Reyna handing Isaac all of the instruments he was needing. Gossip never seemed to leave her amazed at how it played out, especially with interns. “Is he responding?”

“Of course he’s not.” Isaac scoffed, but Ramsey was willing to let it slide. Just this once.

“You can-”

“I can call it, right?”

She just looked at him like the idiot that he was. Ramsey was beginning to think, with her new patient waiting on her, that idiocy ran along the lines of the male gene. “Is that what you would do next to save him, Dr. Lahey?”

“Yeah, I’d totally call it.”

“To _save him_.”

A sigh hummed out between his lips, but he finally locked eyes with his resident and said, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to do a pericardial window.”

“You might not be useless after all.” She sent a devilish smirk his way before resting her eyes on the current trouble child of her gaggle of interns. “Stilinski, you’re with me now. I’ve got the beauties of a bowel obstruction waiting for your eager attention.”

Stiles sighed as he watched her walk out of the room, turning to Isaac with a mock sense of satisfaction scribbled all over his face like a child writing lazily on an immaculate wall. “Joy.”

“Hey, at least your patient isn’t dead already.”

Stiles did his best to make out of the room with as much haste as Ramsey’s departure could muster, while Isaac caught Reyna cutting eyes at him like the quick swipes of a dagger. “What should we do now, Doctor?” She spat out the word ‘doctor’ like it left a bad taste in her mouth, an insult to Isaac’s ears within the millisecond that her sentence had been heard.

 Isaac said to himself, “Starting to really envy this guy right about now.”

x

“Stop it!”

Huffing loudly, Derek retracted from examining the true Chief of Surgery. Despite the current standing between to two colleagues, Derek had to do his duty as a doctor to follow up on his patient, no matter who it was. He quickly wrapped things up and stood back from Deaton, just as a beautiful goddess of a woman came sauntering into the hospital room.

“Alan Xavier Deaton, you are in planning-a-funeral level of trouble!”

“You called my wife, Derek!?” Deaton yelled.

He just delivered a knowing glance his way. “You invited mine to Seattle. Just returning the favor. And sending you home with someone to look after you is the only way that you’re leaving this hospital room.”

“Ginger, I thought you were with your sister in Hawaii?”

“And I got the first flight here when I found out that you had brain surgery.” She growled. “Brain surgery that you neglected to tell me that you were having!”

“It wasn’t a big deal.”

Ginger was about to decree another round of obscenities at her husband when Julia strutted in her model way that used to drive Derek crazy, but now it drove him crazy in a totally different way that made him loathe the ground she seemed to glide upon.

“I thought that was you I saw from the hall!” Julia crashed into Ginger with a massive hug, embracing her old mentor’s wife turned friend after going so long without seeing her.

“Julia, my goodness.” Ginger turned toward Derek. “Why didn’t you tell me she was here?”

“Ask your husband. He’s the one who brought her here.”

Ginger was quick to notice the exchanged between Julia and Derek, and then her husband before she regarded Julia once more with a bright smile.

“Well, I’m glad the two of you are working through things. The Derek and Julia Era hasn’t ended after all.”

“We’re not.” Derek scoffed. “There is no more Derek and Julia Era.”

“But we’re not divorced, Derek.” Julia countered.

“The thing is, is that we are, Julia. It’s just matter of paperwork.” He turned to Deaton then, glancing slightly at Ginger as he spoke. “He’s cleared to leave as soon as everything’s signed and done.” Derek shot a glance at Julia then. “Something I hope to have myself very soon.”

Storming out of the room, Derek refused to let the past, or people that had been a part of it, ruin his present in a way that left him unable to recognize his surrounding, whether it be professionally or personally.

x

Since she had been assigned to the father of the accident victims, Allison had been in surgery while her friends had been roaming the floor and attending to patients that otherwise needed their attentive flare of medicine. She was thankful though, to be back in the OR. It felt like she hadn’t seen a scalpel in eons, so when she was scrubbing in on the operation with Peter, Allison couldn’t feel anything but elated.

“Are people really stupid enough not to wear seatbelts?” The other doctor, Dr. Wallace, who was performing the procedure with Peter.

“People don’t think,” Peter began. “Especially when they let their road rage get the best of them.” Retracting his hands from the inside of the patient, Peter stepped back, peeling off his gloves and tossing them into the designated bin. “I’m out, my work’s finished.”

“The bowel’s a mess,” Wallace droned. “Repairable, but still, it’s going to take a while. His liver is shot.”

Sort of ignoring him, Peter looked to his intern. “Argent, tell me what you see?”

“Bleeding.” She nodded. “Deep laceration.”

“Is that all?”

“Cirrhotic. His wife says he’s on the transplant list.” Allison knew that that was a long shot, though. Her patient’s liver was completely obliterated. His best hope was a family donor because she was pretty sure that waiting for an anonymous donor wasn’t going to give him enough time.

Peter arched his eyebrows with a questioning glance. “Does he have any other family here?”

“A wife and son, both in the crash.”

x

Inside of the wife’s room, Francine Leeber, Lydia was working on examining her patient to the fullest. But when she asked Francine to roll over as easily as she could, there was a dull, but vibrant bruise settling into a certain place on her back and side, covering the area where her kidneys were supposed to be.

“Oh wow.” Lydia ushered, holding back as much shock as she could. “How long have you had this?”

“The crash, we hit so hard.” Francine’s trembling voice gave her away even more so than the coloring of her bruise.

“Impossible. The coloring pattern suggests that it’s a couple weeks old.” Lydia leaned forward, even though she wasn’t facing her patient as attempted to roll back over. “Francine, you can tell me. How did you really get this bruise?”

But the silence came too easily to Francine. Instead of answering Lydia, she just winced at the pain that the intern knew was coursing against her aching frame as they sat in the void of dialogue among them.

x

Glad that he had a patient to take his mind off of everything, namely Derek, Stiles graciously wheeled his patient towards to elevator to take more scans of his bowel, to accurately confirm whether or not he was carrying drugs inside of his body.

“We’ll know when we see your films, whether or not you’re carrying something harmful.” Stiles told him, trying to reason with him before they got the scans developed. “It would be a lot easier on you and us his you just told me the truth, Mr. O’Bear.”

“It’s not drugs.”

“Mr. O’Bear.”

“I swear to you.” He nodded. “It’s not drugs.”

Exhaling slowly, Stiles just gave his patient a smile. “Alright, good. For your sake, I’m glad it’s not drugs.”

But when they finally had the films to find out what exactly was in Mr. O’Bear’s system, the radiologist slamming down the films for Stiles to interpret.

“It’s drugs.”

“Dammit.” Stiles took the films, holding them up to the light so he could really see then.

“Looks like it’s just shy of a dozen balloons.” The radiologist shook his head. “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s probably cocaine.”

Just down the hall, Ramsey was looking at her own pair of films from patients, in the form of Scott and Lydia’s patients respectfully.

“Matty Leeber, eighteen. Kid’s pretty lucky. No internal bleeding, no fractures.” Scott told her.

“And what’s your recommendation?”

“Observe through an overnight stay.”

Ramsey gave Scott a nod, content with his course of action, afterwards giving Lydia a glance that told her that he was her turn to light up her set of x-rays for the resident to see. When the set of films were illuminated, Ramsey recoiled, her head swinging backwards in awe.

“Damn!”

Powering through her resident’s outcry, Lydia began her presentation. “Francine Leeber, forty-three. She had multiple healed fractures on her humerus and clavicle. Third and fourth ribs also bruised.”

“Abuse?”

“She had a massive yellowing bruise over her right kidney. Tender to palpitation. She claims she got it from a fall last week.” This gained a scoff from Ramsey, a clear sign that she too didn’t believe the patient’s source. “She’s bleeding.”

“Perinephric hematoma.” Ramsey agreed. “What’s next?”

“We’ll look after it. It should reverse itself. Bed rest should be her best friend right about now.” Lydia nodded, not mentioning that she also thought that her patient could have used a shrink as well.

Sauntering into the already high tension room, Stiles walked up to Ramsey and surrendered the films to his boss. “It’s drugs.”

“Idiot.” Ramsey took them, putting them up on the screen that was already humming its fluorescent light for them to see through. “Alright, what do you do to help this man not die in the next five minutes if one of those balloons burst?”

“Run the bowel for extraction.” Stiles said.

“Book an OR.”

Everyone went to leave, but Scott held back to stare at the films. “Wait, they’re definitely drugs, right?”

They all spun around, but it was Ramsey who delivered the dialogue. “What makes you think that it’s not drugs, McCall?”

“Because this one,” He lifted a finger to aim right at one of the supposed balloons. “It has a face.”

Coming back to the screen, Ramsey adjusted the brightness of the light as her interns looked on with earnest.

“That one has a face too.” Stiles stated.

Lydia gasped unexpectedly. “No, they all do.”

“Son of a bitch.” Ramsey shook her head. “It’s Ken.”

“I’m sorry, Ken?” Lydia questioned.

“The idiot swallowed the heads of ten Ken dolls.”

x

Back inside of Mr. Leeber’s surgery, a nurse was hanging up another blood bag of B negative blood for the patient as Peter came striding in.

“Have we heard from UNOS?”

“They don’t have a liver.” Allison answered, who had remained in the surgery despite Peter’s earlier departure. “He’s on the list, but it’s not looking good.”

“Hale, I can work on this liver until I fall asleep, but nothing is going to do the trick for him. And he’s not going to survive recovery with the liver he has now.”

“I was hoping this wasn’t the case.” Peter sighed, eyeing Wallace evenly. “Mr. Leeber’s only chance is a family member. How long do you have left here, Dr. Wallace?”

“Five hours. Maybe six.”

“Alright then, Argent.” He nodded towards Allison. “Six hours is how long we have to find Mr. Leeber a fresh liver.”

x

Still trying to work on his already dead patient, using all of his resources to bring him back to the light of the living, Isaac was also trying not to focus too much on the fact that he was alone with Reyna, leaving the option for the two of them to talk about their wavering relationship, not that Isaac wanted any sort of part of said conversation that was sure to take place.

“Does this guy have any family?” Isaac said, breaking the tension in the air.

“Reaching them as we speak. Or at least trying to.”

“Alright, good.”

“I’m sorry about the syphilis.”

Coughing because he felt so out of place and was so unprepared to have this convo with Reyna, Isaac gripped them instrument he was using to do the pericardial window a little harder at the mention of the past that had transpired between the two of them.

“We don’t have to talk about it. Thanks though, good to know. But let’s just…not talk about it.”

“I just wanted to apologize.”

“Yep, great. Thanks. I’m sorry too.” Awkward was such a severe understatement about how he currently felt right now. He didn’t like this. If this was anything how he had made Allison feel for the whole Billie Wilds thing, he’d never forgive himself.

“I’m a nurse, I should have known. I was sore, and itchy and-”

“We really _really_ don’t have to talk about this.”

Isaac finished with the procedure, which was void because his patient really was dead. So he checked his watch, looked at Reyna, and delivered the time of death before he practically ran out of the room, trying to avoid any problems that bore his name.

x

Lydia crossed her arms across her chest as she watched Peter amble into the room, intent on talking with Francine about her husband needing a liver transplant. From what she had heard from Allison, he was pretty bad off and they only had a little bit of time to try and convince Matty, their son, to donate one of his kidneys to his abusive father, something she had learned from Francine herself in the form of her films.

“Stan always loved his beer.” Francine went on, explaining to Peter maybe why his liver was oh so damaged. “He quit drinking as soon as his liver started to fail a few years back. But his blood type is so rare. B negative. They’ve suggested a family member.”

“Was there any luck in finding a donor?” Peter questioned.

Francine nodded. “Matty, my son. He’s a match.”

“Obligation isn’t a good enough reason to donate.” Lydia said, trying not to let a scoff scurry under her tone. “Transplants are often very risky.” She also ignored the side eye of authority that Peter flashed in her direction like a micromanaging beacon.

“We have a date set, but Matty hasn’t made the decision yet and,” Francine battled a bought of sobs. “I don’t want to nag him about it.”

“Then don’t.”

Peter’s look told her that she was skating on very thin, very treacherous ice. So Lydia just turned away from the both of them and charted a few more lines in Francine’s workup.

“Your son can have all the time that Stan’s surgery will allow.” Nodding, Peter left the room, beckoning Lydia over as Francine began to sob about her husband’s state and her son’s seeming unwillingness to save his father’s already very fragile life.

Once they clear of the room, Peter yanked Lydia aside in the hallway and eyed her like his stare was the only thing keeping her alive. And at least professionally, Lydia knew that it might as well have been.

“I’m waiting for a good enough explanation for your lack of sympathy display that occurred in there.”

“Stan is beating his wife.” She said without any warning or any sense of caring how loud she spoke to her attending, especially with a wandering audience as they buzzed around them carefully. “Abuse is written all over her films and there’s evidence that it’s been an ongoing thing for quite some time.”

“Oh. I wasn’t aware, but your actions in there-”

“Francine has multiple fractures, Peter. A beating that she took last week has left her with a kidney bleed. And in case you haven’t heard, it was his road rage that inspired everyone’s injuries. He’s the cause of the accident that left one guy dead!”

“So, what, we don’t do anything to help save him? Forget what we’re here to do because we have opposing feelings to the patient’s life?”

“If I were making the decisions-”

“But you’re not!” The level of his voice was already toeing the line of a scream. “It’s not up to you what happens next.”

Done with the way he was treating her, Lydia rolled her eyes and scoffed loudly. “Yeah, you’ve made that clear as crystal.”

“Well I’m glad we agree.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are.”

Lydia summoned up a stampede of energy to refrain from smacking the living essence out of Peter just then, but she decided that her career was worth more than that of a little quarrel with her ex…whatever he was. Her standing as a surgical resident in the program was worth walking away from, especially when all she wanted to do was claw away at Peter Hale’s flesh.

x

After the entire debacle where his patient had swallowed ten Ken dolls, Stiles was left to wait until his surgery before he could do much else. So he was graciously helping out the nurses with some of their duties until he simply couldn’t take it anymore and went looking for Ramsey, who had been told that Mr. Rubble was refusing to tell why he had ingested the doll heads.

Unfortunately for Stiles, right when he was about to open his mouth and ask Ramsey for some different thing to do, Julia came swinging by and said, “Dr. Stilinski, I’d like to talk to you if you can spare a minute.”

As she spoke, she kept walking, turning down the hall awaiting Stiles to follow her. He started his approach, looking at Ramsey in hopes that she would redirect him somewhere else but she just shook her head, the stain of a smile evident by the lifting of her lips.

“Don’t look at me. She’s an attending.”

Holding in the swears he yearned to expel, Stiles found Julia waiting for him in the hallway, stepping into stride with him as they walked down the hallway together.

“He told you, right? I’m assuming he told you anyway. About why he left me.”

Annoyed, Stiles walked a little bit in front of them so he could whip around and face the woman that had broken his spirit lately. Well, his romantic spirit at least. Not that he had any reason to feel that way when Stiles himself was the one caught between ruining a marriage, regardless of how Derek felt about said matrimony.

“No offense, Dr. Blake, but I’m not involved.”

“So you’re not taking him back?” Julia regarded him very graciously, Stiles suddenly aware that Julia found his decision not only a little shocking, but the right one for him to pursue. “Good boy.”

“For future reference, I’d like to keep our relationship, yours and mine, professional and nothing more.”

“Stiles, there’s two sides to every story.” At that, Stiles knew he didn’t need any more of Julia’s pleas or words or whatever it was that she was trying to get him to see or understand because it didn’t matter. Neither her words nor Derek’s would change the fact that they were married and that Derek had lied to him by omission. “People get desperate to keep…someone’s attention.”

He stormed away even faster, unable to deal with drama related to Derek, whether it be professional, or marital.

x

A little later, Allison, Isaac, and Lydia were walking around the café with their food trays, meeting Scott at their usual table to eat lunch with the sparse moments that they had to spare. Lydia didn’t waste any time complaining about her case as soon as all of them sat down together.

“There’s no decision to be made, in my opinion. It’s easy. The father is a drunken abuser.”

“Wouldn’t you feel like you were killing your own father?” This plea of reason, per usual, came from Allison as she took her long brunette locks and quickly put it up in a ponytail so that she could eat without getting food in her hair or vice versa. “That would be so hard to live with.”

“No, because the father is already a killer himself. He killed Isaac’s DOA. It’s not the same.” Lydia debated.

At this point, Stiles quickly joined them with his own tray just as Reyna walked by the table.

“Isaac, hey.”

His friends all looked to him for some type of response, but Isaac just started to spoon applesauce into his mouth, unable or unwilling to speak to Reyna. Not now. So without a word from him, Reyna found her nurse friends and sat down to eat with them instead of exchanging words with him like she had thought about doing.

“You should go eat with her.” Stiles smiled. “Reyna wants to make up with you.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t let a little syph get in the way.” Scott bellowed.

“It’s not that.”

“Oh, it so is.” Lydia laughed.

“Is this about your crush on someone else that you mentioned?” The fact that Stiles remembered caused Isaac to be taken aback. But he just left Stiles’ question unanswered, confirming his previous suspicion.

“You have another girl? Seriously?” Allison let her eyes tumble in her head, disgusted that Isaac had so obviously moved on already.

“No.” Isaac seethed. “I’m not talking about it. Let’s just eat, okay?”

Suddenly, something struck Stiles about Isaac’s situation like a miner striking gold for the first time after a month of exploring. “What are you doing here, Isaac?”

“Uh, eating?”

“No, with Reyna. What in the hell are you doing with Reyna?”

“I’m not doing anything with Reyna. Not anymore. Remember when she gave me fire crotch?”

“Asshole.” Stiles roared, so serious it shocked all the others. “Reyna thinks she still has a chance because you’re inadvertently telling her that you’re still emotionally tethered to the relationship. She has no closure. There’s nothing worse than thinking you still have a chance when you haven’t had a chance from the very beginning!”

No one responded, because Lydia felt what Stiles was saying was true too. “He’s right, Isaac. Tell her you’re not available emotionally, tell her there’s someone else, but don’t leave her wondering. Jesus, Isaac, don’t be so selfish! Let her have some feelings of closure!”

“Why the yelling!?” Isaac screeched back.

“Estrogen, Isaac!” Lydia blurted out. “Because of all the estrogen.”

Everyone stared at Stiles and Lydia as they angrily chewed on their food, lost in their own woes than to really be of any good conversation with the others.

“So…paging new subject.”

x

Back inside of Francine’s room, Lydia was checking her back, making sure that her bleed wasn’t any worse or that he back’s coloring hadn’t changed or worsened.

“I should speak to Matty myself.” Francine nodded once she was back to lying on her back and sitting before Lydia as she charted silently. “I need to be the one to talk him through this massive decision.”

“The whole point is for him to make the decision by himself.” Lydia didn’t bother looking up from the chart to answer her, because, well, she didn’t have the energy to waste on a woman who was willing to go through the torture of abuse.”

“I’m a fool, right?” Francine said, forcing Lydia to look at her with the inquiry. That’s what you’re thinking, that I’m a fool for wanting to save Stan.”

“I think you’re being emotional.” Lydia admitted. “And being emotional clouds judgement and distorts the facts.” She paused by sort of slamming down the chart on the end of the patient’s bed. “Your husband killed a man today, during the crash. He’s dead. And you and your son almost joined him. Those are the facts.”

“You’ve never been in love, have you, Dr. Martin?”

“Even love has its limits.” Lydia scoffed, walking out of the room, not wanting to hear another excuse leave her patient’s mouth.

x

Scott had taken Matty outside the hospital. One for fresh air because everything in a hospital smelt like a hospital, and that was a little distracting when you had such a heavy decision burdened on your shoulders like Matty had. But also because Scott knew a little of what he was sure Matty was going through. He pushed him down the sidewalk outside the hospital in a wheelchair, finding a nice place to park it while Scott knelt down beside of him, Matty continuing an earlier started tangent.

“What if he hits her again?”

“You can’t make this type of decision based on anger. That’s not your call to make whether or not he does what he does.”

“You said you understand. What happened with your father then? What did you do?”

“The first time, I didn’t do anything. I was scared, it was easier to pretend in wasn’t going on. Being young allows you to hide. But it’s a little more complicated when you’re growing up like you are. I think it was two weeks after the first time my father hit my mother before I intervened.”

“What happened?”

“I sent him to the hospital.” Scott nodded. “But that was my anger. It took control of me. He left us after that, once he was out of the hospital. He never came back, and for the most part, we were better off. He was an asshole, a grade A bastard, but he was still my dad, you know? I don’t know how things would have worked out if I hadn’t had let anger be the one that decided me entire life. That’s what you need to remember right now.”

His pager went off loudly then, bleating to the tone of time running out.

“What’s wrong?” Matty said, reacting to the look on Scott’s face.

“Time’s up.”

With Peter, Allison, and Scott looming over them back inside of Francine’s room, Matty was finally in the room with his mother, sitting there silent as he mulled over the decision in his head.

“Matt. Matty.”

He ignored his mother’s calls, just replaying Scott’s words over in his mind repeatedly until he finally spoke.

“I’ll do it. But only if you and I leave him. Enough is enough, Mom.”

At the nurse’s station, Peter went up to the nurse’s to tell them what was going down now that the transplant was a go, Lydia coming up beside him to hand over Francine’s chart.

“Eighteen year old liver donor, no transmittable diseases or malignancy. ETA about ten minutes.” Peter said eloquently.

“She’s gonna take him back.” Lydia said when he went to leave, causing him to go back and lean on the counter, eyeing his intern patiently.

“There’s no way to know that. It’s not-”

“Not our call, I know.” Lydia said, like before, but this time she said it was ease and knowledge instead of anger and malicious tendencies.

“Lydia, I, uh, about before, I’m really sorry. And now, I just wanting to know…”

“Know what, Peter?”

“If you’re okay.”

At first, she wanted to be angry at the gall he seemed to strut around with at asking her how she was after he had ended things between them, but her pride got the better of her, so she answered with, “Can I scrub in?” Slowly, he nodded between a chaste breath. “Then yes, Dr. Hale, I’m perfectly okay.”

She walked away, leaving Peter to wonder if she was truly as alright as she claimed. Even if he had been the one to end their relationship, Peter still cared a lot for Lydia. All he wanted was her happiness and success. So if she wanted to focus on her career, Peter was going to do everything he could to make sure that she got the teaching that she had deserved from the beginning, before they had even set their sights on each other.

x

Isaac ran into Reyna as he was going to confirm the OR, literally smashed right into her. It halted his mission to claim the OR, but the hurt look on her face stopped him, since he knew it wasn’t from their little run in that she seemed to be upset.

“Reyna.”

“I’m leaving, Dr. Lahey. Sorry to run into you.”

“Wait,” he caught her arm, and for whatever reason that Isaac didn’t quite understand given everything he had done to her recently, she turned around and awaited his proclamation. “Reyna, listen. Maybe I’m not over the whole syph thing, but that’s not what’s going on here. That’s not why we…there’s someone else, okay? You’re amazing. Really amazing, but it’s just…I’ve been smothering these feelings for someone else deep down and that’s not fair to either of us. I’m really sorry.”

“Honesty.” She smiled, even though there was sparkling hurt in her eyes. “That’s all I wanted to hear. Thank you, Isaac.”

She leaned in and lay a quick kiss on his lips then, smiling once they came out of the kiss at one other before Isaac watched her leave, left to wonder if he should act on the feelings that he had for one of his friends.

x

Climbing into the elevator, Derek was glad that his busy day of constant brain bleeds was over. It had kept him busy enough that he hadn’t really had much interaction with anyone else since he had been in surgery almost the entire day. But just when he was relaxing and ready to go home after the elevator ride, Julia came striding in with her things, clearly also leaving the hospital for the evening.

“You told Stiles what happened.” Was her way of saying hi to him for the day, an action he despised on pretty much every level that there was between them.

“Of course I did. He had a right to know.” Derek scoffed, seeing the defiant look on her face. “What did you tell him?”

“That seeking attention makes people do stupid things.”

“Wow, Julia.” Derek felt the sudden urge to scream as he looked at his estranged wife. “That’s the description you’re going to attach to yourself in this? Is that what you were conjuring up when you screwed my best friend?”

“No, Derek, by that point I was satisfying a craving that you had stopped administering.” He laughed at that, but in the way that it meant nothing to him, that it didn’t faze him anymore despite his dry reaction to her abrasive words. “You and me, we got lazy because we got busy. We got busy and successful and lazy to the point where we didn’t even bother fighting about the fact that we were fighting, Derek. And Jackson was there…he was just there and I missed you and now, I’ve made the biggest decision of my life and I’ll never be able to tell you how sorry I am. For absolutely everything that I’ve done.” Tears bounced against her eyes, she knew Derek saw that much in her, but when the elevator doors blared their arrival and opened for them, Derek went out instantly. “Derek-”

He turned back to her with a frantic look on his face, more animal than man in that moment that she saw him. “I’m a black hole absorbing excuses, Julia.” And with nothing more than that statement, Derek strutted out of the hospital, ready for his lonely night of drinking beer in his trailer alone.

x

Now that surgery was over and all the Ken doll heads were completely clear of Mr. O'Bear’s intestine, Stiles was wheeling him back to a curtain to await discharge. Mr. O'Bear was just coming out of his deep anesthetic sleep as Stiles was hooking him back up to all the various machines.

“Are they gone? All of them?”

“They are.” Stiles nodded. “It was…an interesting surgery. Do you feel better?”

Mr. O'Bear just sighed. “Yes. No. I just feel empty. All I feel is empty now.”

Almost exactly mirroring his own words, Stiles looked at Mr. O'Bear warmly as he sat down next to him in the chair available. “Yeah, I’ve been feeling a lot of that myself.”

“I can tell.” Mr. O'Bear nodded. “I saw it in your eyes the first time I met you.”

“Is that why you did it then?” Stiles questioned, knowing that he shouldn’t be but his curiosity taking over his professional mind at that moment. “Why the Ken doll heads? What’s the point?”

“To feel.” He said, emotions welling within him as a tear slid down his cheek promptly. “To be full. To be whole. Because otherwise, I feel like I do now. Hopelessly empty in every way.”

As he started to cry. Stiles let out a hand, clutching his patient’s own with his has he completely saw himself within Mr. O'Bear. He looked up just in time from Mr. O'Bear to see Derek walking from the nurse’s station, signing off on one last chart before he left for the night. Stiles knew that he could have Derek if he truly wanted to. At least then he wouldn’t be so empty. But he was. And maybe that was okay. And maybe, just maybe, if he tried hard enough, he could find a way to be full without the need of Derek. Self-sustaining himself in a way that allowed him to move on, by any means necessary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I know that this has taken FIVEEVER for me to get to, and I deeply apologize. I've had a lot of personal things in my life turn completely upside down and I've been too broken down to even look at this story. However, recently I've gotten over myself and poured everything that I'm going through into this chapter. Secondly, a huge THANK YOU to everyone that's left comments and kudos on this work, even without it being meticulously updated. I appreciate it so so much. And to everyone who's been waiting for this, I'm so sorry to took so long. But here it is. Enjoy! And thanks again for everyone's continued patience.


	3. Should We Cry?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles and Lydia grow even closer as they both deal with post-sleeping-with-attending life. The hospital is personified chaos when Stiles' secret gets exposed in the form of a patient being admitted to Seattle Grace. Derek receives unexpected news from both contenders in the tangled romance of his life. Lydia succumbs to complications with her pregnancy, leaving Peter to found out only after she collapses in his OR.

Jogging was something very new to Stiles. He didn't like exercising. The most exercise he liked to participate in came from binge watching multiple seasons of a television show for hours without a bathroom break. But when Lydia had insisted that he'd feel a lot better if he went for a jog with her, she didn't really leave a whole lot of room for him to refuse. So he was jogging with her early in the morning before both of their shifts at work started. And Stiles was hating every minute of it.

Lydia was completely into it, so when he took a second to rest his hands on his knees, she just waited by running around him in a lopsided circle.

"I hate you."

"You love me for making you more fit so you can get a different guy than Derek and finally move on."

"And if I don't want another guy?" He asked, slightly out of breath.

"When was your last orgasm?" Lydia said, no use in holding back when it came to sex as far as she was concerned.

"With someone other than myself or in general?" Stiles stopped his rest and started running alongside Lydia as they pounded the pavement of as local park's running track. "And are you saying that you've already had sex without someone else besides Peter?"

"Well…no."

"Okay then. Shut up."

They kept running in the park, Stiles going off the track to run in the grass so it would be a little easier on his legs and feet as their workout continued. Stiles was in his Dartmouth t-shirt while Lydia donned her Stanford one. It hadn't been planned for them to both wear their alma mater's logos this morning, but the two were pretty much in sync in every other aspect of their lives, so it only made sense that their wardrobe would take note and follow as well. Their shorts weren't matching though. They weren't that far in. Yet.

"This is awful. Why did I agree to this?"

Lydia rolled her eyes. "Working out creates endorphins which in turn makes us feel better about the chaos that is our lives."

"Do you feel better?"

"Do you?"

They had stopped running then, taking a place in the middle of the park and just standing around each other. Or more accurately, Stiles was once again resting his hands on his knees and Lydia spun around him once more in a tangle of continued jogging.

"I feel stupid. Sleeping with our bosses was...we're stupid. And I'm a mistress."

"Stupid mistress." Lydia nodded, still running around him to keep her workout going.

"If I'm a stupid mistress, that makes you a pregnant whore."

Lydia stopped her jogging, taking a moment to join Stiles in resting, her breath hitching up and down as her lungs retracted over and over. Having already regained control over his breathing, Stiles looked over at his friend, his emotions welling to the surface of his thoughts and ready to overflow out of his mouth.

"You know what I'm going to hate now? Fricken ferry boats. Derek has grown to love ferry boats so now everytime I'm out running errands and see a damn ferry boat…"

"Aortic aneurysms are ruined for me." Lydia countered. "Peter taught me this amazing technique and..oh, and coronary artery bypass grafts. I used to fucking breathe coronary artery bypass grafts."

He crouched down on the ground, laying in the grass so he could get his breathing back to one hundred percent normal. Lydia took it upon herself to do the same until they were laying side by side, glancing up at the vibrant blue sky hovering above them. The clouds flitted across the open sky like their thoughts knocked into everything within their heads, threatening to explode out by any available orifice.

"Should we cry?" she proposed, her breathing starting to slow. "Just let everything play itself out and get it over with."

"Probably. Yeah, that's something we should get out of our systems." Stiles agreed.

Their collective breathing started to match, much like their previously mentioned clothing. Glancing over at her friend, Lydia asked, "Should we...like, cry now?"

"No, definitely not."

"Yeah, right. Let's just...keep jogging."

x

Once their bff gaff-in had been established and the jogging had been ran out of their systems, both Lydia and Stiles were in the locker room getting ready, with Isaac by their side. During their attempts to get ready, they had been stalled by gawking at Scott and Allison, who were standing just outside the interns' locker room, laughing over coffee that they had gotten together.

"What's happening?" Lydia asked in utter disbelief.

"I...think she's hanging out with Scott." Isaac answered.

"But why? I thought after he found out she liked him, but then she rejected him, that they would...I don't know, create some space from one another."

"Maybe they're just friends, trying to go back to being friends." He told Lydia.

"Well, they should stop." Stiles said as he grabbed his coat from his locker. "It's freaking me out."

They all started walking in the hallway together, trailing a little ways behind Dr. Ramsey as they started to walk across the skywalk of the hospital. And Allison was pleading to her friends that everything between her and Scott was fine, and strictly professional while he walked much closer to Ramsey.

"It's good, I promise." Allison smiled. "Scott and I are mature enough to move past...everything and just be friends and co-workers."

"Right." said Lydia, though it was clear in her tone and delivery that belief was the furthest from her choice of emotions on the topic.

"Seriously."

"You have a thing for Scott." Isaac stated, shifting his eyebrows to give her a sharp look. "I give it a week before he gives you the low-hard thrust."

"Okay, gross." Allison contorted her nose in disgust, but a smile stained her lips as she shoved past him and continued to saunter across the skywalk with her friends.

"Yeah, ETA a week before you're throwing back your head and yelling Scott's name in ecstasy." Lydia argued.

"Not true!"

"Allison," Stiles looked at her warmly. "You should visit Egypt. You'd fit in perfectly."

"Egypt? Why Egypt?"

"Because you're already the perfect representation of denial."

Their friends cackled explosively, but Allison just stood in front of Stiles while their friends walked on.

"Oh, we're pretending like you still aren't harboring a huge flame for Derek?"

Not willing to trust his rebuttal, Stiles just rolled his eyes and pushed past her, both of them struggling to keep up with their friends and with Ramsey. All of them wondering just what kind of surgeries were going to be in their grasp today.

x

Entering the elevator, ready to start his shift for the day, Derek glanced over and was surprised to see Deaton standing in the empty elevator by himself.

"Why are you in this hospital?" Derek asked.

"I work here?" Deaton cut him down for size with the intense heat in his dark eyes.

As they talked, the elevator shut and started to move. "Funny, I forget the part where I happened to clear you for surgery."

"I've been addicted to The Real Housewives of Atlanta. I'm in love with Bravo, Derek. You're going to clear me for surgery or the next surgery you'll be in will be your own." Deaton said.

"I was thinking about it," admitted Derek. "But that was also before you made the idiotic decision to not only award Chief to Peter, but also sending a personal VIP invitation to allow Satan to parade around Seattle."

The elevator slid open again, stopping on a separate floor. And who should be waiting to ascend on the elevator than the very ex-wife Derek had just been bashing.

"Hi, Alan. I didn't know you were cleared already." Julia sauntered in in her way, ignoring Derek and deciding to stand next to the Chief in the elevator.

Derek cooed. "Ah, Satan speaks English."

"You know, I will answer to Satan, but I have to admit I'd much rather be referred to as Commander Of Darkness."

"Why is she still here, Alan?"

"There's a pediatric attending on maternity leave, so I asked her to stay."

Julia slithered over to Derek. "Actually, I need a neuro consult."

"Fine. Whatever."

x

"Mr. Merlan did well overnight, but has remained afebrile. He's scheduled for a resection non-small cell carcinoma. Unremarkable pre-op labs, chest x-rays haven't changed since his previous scans."

All the interns were doing rounds, in a patient's room with both Ramsey and Peter, with Lydia uttering her best recap for the cardiothoracic surgeon.

"I don't want you to worry, Mr. Merlan." Peter laid a hand on the patient's shoulder. "I'm very good, and I'm going to do my best to reverse everything that your dry cleaning chemicals have done to you, okay?" The patient nodded, not risking his voice for fear or furthering damaging his already weak ENT tissues. "Has oncology seen Mr. Merlan?"

"They're waiting for a surgical path." explained Lydia.

"Wonderful," Peter smiled. "Thank you, Dr. Martin."

"You're welcome, Dr. Hale."

Leaving the room and walking in the hall onto the next patient they were going to round on, Stiles got Lydia alone and away from the others so he could comment on the prior interaction between his friend and her former flame.

"I still think you should tell him about the baby, Lydia." Stiles nodded. "He has some responsibilities to-"

"No, stop." Lydia rolled her eyes, scoffing as they took a corner together, huddled close so that no one would overhear them. "Okay, this isn't your decision. I appreciate your input because we're actually becoming quite good friends, but I don't need you for this, okay? It'll be taken care of and then all of my ties to Peter Hale will be severed for good."

"Yeah, okay."

"And don't do that." Lydia smiled. "Sarcasm is my thing."

Stiles just stood there for a second, giving Lydia what little room she needed to brush off the conversation. As he did, he started to walk when he locked eyes with Derek, who had apparently already been staring at him. There were words exchanged between their silent glances, something that only they could hear. Stiles heard the pleading in Derek's eyes, the begging to be understood. And in return, Stiles sent him the look that said he couldn't and that things were how they had to be right now.

He fought the urge to runaway from him then, but instead Stiles just caught up with his fellow interns and entered the next room on their rounds.

"Carter Atch." Isaac began. "He's 23 and he has a schedule ETS for his erythrophobia hyperpyrexia."

Whispering to Lydia, Allison said, "What is-"

"Blushing." She ushered back.

Ramsey, once again reigning over her interns, took hold of the conversation. "Are there any questions you have for us, Carter?"

"No, Dr. Ha-" He stopped as red pigments overtook his face, fanning himself as the blushing took its rightful place along the ridges of his features. "Sorry. Dr. Hale explained everything in perfect detail."

"Don't feel bad." Scott smiled down at him. "Everyone wants to run into an on-call room with Hale."

"Dr. McCall." Ramsey didn't need to say anything but his name, the disapproval leaked over every syllable.

"I'm sorry, but it's true." Scott dared a glance at Stiles, who just shot him a look of anger and to focus back on the patient.

Just then, Ramsey got a page. After apologizing to Carter, she wrangled her interns out of the room as they went trekking down the hallway towards the pit.

"What do we have, Dr. Ramsey?" Lydia beckoned.

"It's looking like diverticulitis."

Once in the pit, they assessed the patient. Stiles had been lagging behind because he had been starving ever since his job with Lydia that morning and was the last one of them to set their eyes on the patient. And he froze. He froze like he had been shot, GSW directly to his left other interns swarmed around the patient, who was destructively combative. He was an older patient, with brown hair and skin that glistened with life experience.

"Get your hands off of me before I have your job!" The patient crooned, struggling to get Isaac's hands off of him. "You're not even a real doctor, you're a novice! Get off of me! I want the Chief!"

Lydia was attempting to read the chart while Ramsey tried her best to calm the patient and the rest of the interns were moving the gurney. "Patient's name is…"

"You're all novices!" Their patient continued.

"Patient is complaining of intermittent cramping pain and diarrhea. He also suffers from…" Lydia paused again, glancing over at Stiles, who was slowing backing away from the floor and from the sight of the patient in question. She could see in Stiles' eyes that panic and tragedy reigned over his ability to process what was happening before his very eyes.

"NOVICES! GET OFF OF ME!"

"Patient suffers from Alzheimer's." Lydia finished.

"What's his name?" Ramsey asked as they pushed the gurney further.

"Dr. Ramsey…"

"Martin! What is the patient's name?"

The patient found Stiles with his wandering eyes, a vein on his forehead protruding and pulsing with vigor. "What in the hell are you doing here? Why are you here? You know not to bother me when I'm at work! GET OUT OF HERE NOW." He yelled loudly and irately at Stiles, causing him to run away and head to the closest on-call room so he could hide from the secret he had tried so hard to keep only to himself.

Seeing this action, Ramsey looked to Lydia for an answer, since she was the one who still cradled the patient's chart in her hand.

"Asher Stilinski."

"Stiles' father?" Isaac said, all of the friends looking to where Stiles had just been and wondering if he was even still breathing.

They found him a little while later in the interns locker room. Ramsey was preventing them from going in and consoling him because, while she sympathized, they had other patients to attend to. Stiles was just leaning against his locker, thankful that the room was empty, save that of himself and the lingering doctors in the doorway, thankful also for Ramsey's restraint at their entry. He had his back facing them, unable to meet their eyes and just stared at the aged metal that made up other interns' lockers.

"Stiles, are you alright?" Isaac called, but of course, he was unable to answer.

"Enough." Ramsey told them, wagging a finger at every one of her remaining interns. She gave a previously rounded chart to Scott. "McCall, you're on the ETS case and if you so much as breathe another joke about his blushing, I will destroy you. Got it?"

"Allison, Nephew Hale and Blake need an intern, head to the NICU."

"Wait, they're working? Like, together? I'm going to be the meat in the adultery sandwich?"

"Get out of my face before I hit you."

Allison didn't stick around to see how serious her boss was, leaving her friends for Derek and Julia's case.

"Thoracotomy with Uncle Hale, Lydia. That's yours."

"Peter? Oh, can I please have the married couple that like to sleep around?"

"I must have missed my first day, because I fail to remember becoming at hostess. I give you the case, you take it. Am I missing anything?"

"No, I'm happy to be with Hale and learning, thanks." Lydia changed her tune, knowing that rising against Ramsey wasn't smart right now.

"And go to Stilinski, Lahey. Asher. Now."

He left, and that meant that only Ramsey was left. Stiles turned around, but on his best neutral face and regarded the resident with heavy eyes. Eyes that had yet to break a tear, and wouldn't, because he knew that he was stronger than that.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." He told her.

"I totally understand," Ramsey nodded. "If you needed to take the day off and be with your father."

"Definitely not. I'm fine. Totally fine. Finer than fine. I'm great. Fantastic."

Staring him down, Ramsey clearly didn't take his ramblings as insurance of his state of mind. "Alright then. You're going to be assigned to scut."

"Wait, what? Didn't you hear me? I'm fine."

"Yeah, your words say you are. But I hate to tell you, your face tells a completely different story. So you're on scut, to take your mind off of everything because while you might think you're fine, you're not fine. So scut, thank you."

x

During a break from his scut, Stiles toed with the idea of visiting his father. Granted, they didn't have the greatest relationship right now, but he was his dad. That hadn't changed because his father blamed Stiles for his mother's death and had acquired Alzheimer's. He was watching Isaac tend to a very uncooperative Asher while he stood outside. He turned around to see Derek heading over to him, and maybe it was because he was distraught, maybe it was because he was shattered and vulnerable, but he let him amble over to him, looking like a knight in ironed polycotton.

"Stiles." Just the way he said his name was enough for Stiles to cry, to run into Derek's arms and just bawl his eyes out. But he couldn't do that. He wouldn't. "I heard."

"Yeah, secret's out. Time for the whispers and the stares to head my way."

"Stiles-"

"Dr. Hale, I-"

"You don't have to keep calling me Dr. Hale."

"Dr. Hale, I need to do something. I can't just watch...I just can't. I need surgery. I need a distraction. Can you help me with that?"

Staring into his eyes, Derek knew that this wasn't just something Stiles was asking for, it was something that he needed, craved.

"Alright. I have the ETS later this afternoon. You can scrub in."

"Thank you."

They lingered for a few moments, just staring at each other before Stiles broke away, preparing for the surgery and pushing all thoughts of Asher Stilinski out of his head so that he could be the doctor that his mother and the former personality of his father would be proud to call their son.

x

Asher Stilinski was angry. So angry, that he was throwing things around the room. His intern was keeping him from the surgery he knew he had to perform. Didn't they know that being a first year attending was rapidly important?

Isaac was doing his best to attend to the delusions of Stiles' father, but it was proving to be a little more than difficult.

"Dr. Stilinski, please stop."

"Get out, get out of here, right now!"

A nurse barged in and asked what she could do to help. "Get me some haloperidol!"

"Don't come in here, Aaron!" Asher screamed at Isaac. "I'm tired of you judging me for everything, even after Claudia and I agreed to let you stay here."

Stiles was just coming up on the room with Scott, glad to have a friend to talk about the case he was on rather than focusing on his father. But when they went closer to the room and Stiles saw his father throwing his fit, he couldn't just not look. He was throwing something at Isaac, causing Stiles to recoil in terror. Scott took one look at his friend, knowing he couldn't handle it.

"Stiles, go."

He didn't need to be told twice. He fled the scene like the hospital had spontaneously combusted.

"I'm a surgeon, Aaron." Asher was telling Isaac, reliving an episode from his former life like it was happening for him for the first time. "I don't have time to waste, my time matters! So I can't leave surgery to attend to your ego! And you can forget about spending more time with Stiles. He might like having you around, but I sure as hell don't. You're going to stay far away from my son and me. Get out. GET OUT RIGHT NOW AND DON'T COME BACK!"

Stiles found himself in Carter Atch's room, not thinking twice about running into the patient's room and slamming the door behind him. In all honesty, he wasn't even sure the room he had just sought refuge in was a patient's room. He just focused on his labored breathing, trying to get it to slow to a more normal pace, leaning against the door so he didn't fall apart like wet paper. It wasn't until the patient spoke up that he realized that he in fact had barged into an occupied room.

"Are you okay?"

Turning his head, Stiles saw that Carter was acutely attuned to his well being, worry oozing from the sockets in his face while his stare pleaded for an answer. Sighing, Stiles just squared his features and said, "I'm supposed to be asking you questions like that."

He turned away from him again, even though he knew Carter was still staring. He just focused on getting his breaths to lighten, to think about anything except the ground of his life being ripped open from him, allowing him to fall into the chasm of strife like he'd been dreading ever since he had moved into his parents' old house and started working at Seattle Grace Hospital.

x

Isaac finally found help in the Chief of Surgery when he ran from Asher Stilinski's room. There was no way he could handle him alone, and dragging Stiles into the mess of his father's disease didn't seem fair at all. So when he found the Chief roaming the halls, he seized the chance to bring him into the matter.

"Sir, could you, um, help me for a second?"

Alan Deaton rolled his eyes, lifting his attention from the paperwork he had been absent-mindedly going over and glossing over the frame of Isaac Lahey. "What is it, Lahey?"

"I could really use some help with Dr. Stilinski and Dr. Ramsey is in surgery."

"Stiles? Are you two fighting or something stupid like that? Honestly, Lahey, you're a doctor. The least you can do is figure out your rivalry amongst yourselves. I'm busy."

He turned away from him, fully meaning to walk away from the young doctor just then, but Isaac was far from giving up on dealing with his patient alone.

"No, sir, not Stiles. It's Dr. Asher Stilinski."

Deaton's feat screeched loudly on the linoleum of the hospital. The sheer force he felt when he looked back at Isaac was enough to send him falling to the floor, but by some miracle, his feet didn't betray him just yet.

"Asher's here?"

"Yes sir, he was admitted a little while ago. And he keeps calling me Aaron and won't let me accurately examine him. Sir, who's Aaron?"

"Aaron." Alan thought about it for a second, not looking at Isaac. Until he realized who Asher must have been referring to him as. "Aaron Stilinski. He was Asher's brother."

"So Stiles' father thinks I'm his brother?"

"It's funny, you do sort of look like Aaron."

"I...look like Stiles' uncle?" Isaac hadn't been expecting, and definitely didn't want, to warrant such a fact.

Finally getting a grip on the situation, Deaton shook his head. "Uh, get to work, Lahey. I'm busy."

"But sir-"

And that was it. All it took for the Chief of Surgery to disappear out of his sights, leaving him to deal with the burden of Asher Stilinski all on his own.

x

Walking into the NICU once again with her patient's chart in hand, Allison was less than optimistic. Early in the day, Julia had begged Derek to take the case of a premature baby, one who had a very slim chance at survival. He had told her that because she had failed to give him all of the details, about how far gone the baby had been, that there was nothing they could do. But Julia was persistent and was getting a set of labs one more time before completely giving up on the little child. So with the labs, Allison gave Julia a small smile and handed her the chart.

"Dr. Blake, it's not looking good."

"What?"

Julia grabbed the chart, looking over the most recent results and sighed so deep, it vibrated throughout the entire room.

"Damn it. Pneumococcus, and a resistant strain at that." She looked from Allison back to the incubator where the tiny baby resided. "The antibiotics aren't working."

"Isn't there anything else we could do, besides the proposed spinal surgery you suggested to Dr. Hale?"

Julia answered with a sigh. "I don't think we're operating today, Argent. You might want to find Ramsey and get reassigned."

"So, he was right. Dr. Hale, when he was here earlier." Allison sighed. "You think he was right about her being a lost cause?"

"She has such a good grip. But it looks like she might be a little too far from being able to help."

x

Lydia, despite having to work with Peter yet again since they had ended their fling / relationship / undetermined situation of romantics, was glad to be in the OR watching the older Dr. Hale operate. Only, she was feeling like crap. No, crap wasn't strong enough a representation of how she was feeling. Death, she felt like seconds away from seeing her life drift from her very eyes. Only she was an intern, and she couldn't tell her boss' or anyone else for that matter that she felt 'sick' and couldn't be watching this amazing surgery take place. So she was toughing it out and working through the pain she began to feel spreading from her abdomen and the sweat piling against her scrub mask.

"Alright, the tumor has infiltrated the pericardium." Peter was saying, looking over to Lydia as she swayed on her feet, looking bored, in his eyes anyway. "Martin." When she didn't respond or even look at him, He yelled again, "Martin!"

"Sorry, what?" Lydia was feeling the ramifications of toughing it out through this surgery. The beads of sweat on her forehead felt like microscopic burns sizzling on her skin. The stomach felt like it was a bomb, ticking away the time until it exploded and took her with it.

"Is my surgery getting in the way of your seemingly important thoughts, Dr. Martin?"

"No, sir." She told him, knowing that there wasn't a right answer to give him. "I apologize."

Up in the gallery, Ramsey was looking down on the surgery when Allison walked in, seeing her boss and just sighing to herself. Ramsey wasn't one to pry into the lives of her interns, but curiosity stirred her tongue to ask, "Did you know, Argent? About Asher. Stiles ever mention anything about his father's condition?"

"No." She said, taking a seat next to the resident. "No, none of us had any idea. And Blake says I need a new case. The preemie is inoperable."

"Never thought I'd see the day that Asher Stilinski was ruled by a disease."

"You knew him?"

Ramsey shook her head. "I knew of him. He left the hospital before I started my internship. Deaton's always been a big fan, from what I understand. It's just strange. I figured Stiles would have mentioned it, as close as you all appear to be."

"I thought I knew everything, almost everything, about him." Allison rolled her eyes, annoyed. "We share a house together and I don't know anything about him, about any of them. We're just interns who work together and some of us happen to live in close proximity to each other. We're nothing to each other."

Back inside the OR, Lydia was still feeling like her life was at its' end. Peter was going through with the surgery of course, but she was convinced that she might be the next one to need his skillful hands to save her own life.

"When I press on the tumor, there's an arrhythmia." Peter sighed, not looking up from the patient's open cavity before adding, "Martin, what is that a sign of?"

"A sign...of...sorry, it's uh...a sign that the tumor has infiltrated the pericardium."

"I've already determined that, Dr. Martin, if you had been listening. What's our possibilities here?"

"I…" Lydia couldn't answer. It was causing her actual fire-wielding pain to open her mouth and speak. "Dr. Hale, I'm sorry…"

"Get it together, Martin. I expect you to know such a simple answer. It could be causing a tear in the aortic muscle of the heart. He, literally, has a broken heart."

That's when the darkness Lydia had been prolonging took hold of her, swallowing up her consciousness and causing her to faint and collapse on the floor of the OR. Ramsey and Allison immediately stood up from their seats, danger spreading across their faces as they rushed down to the OR to assist. Peter took one look and felt fear grip at his own heart.

"Lydia. Lydia! Someone help her! Get a gurney in here! Don't just stand there help her. Lydia!"

Allison and Ramsey stormed in, helping get Lydia out of the OR and onto the gurney that had been acquired shortly after.

"Lydia, can you hear me?" This was Allison, trying to appeal to the weebly eyes of Lydia has she struggled to stay awake.

"Argent, what's going on? Tell me what you know." Peter demanded.

"I don't know, Dr. Hale."

Ramsey strapped an oxygen mask to Lydia's face, as they maneuvered the gurney to get here the hell out of the operating room.

"Dr. Ramsey, I want a full report when she stabilizes, do you hear me? As soon as she's alright."

"Right away, Dr. Hale."

Ramsey lead the gurney carrying Lydia out of the room and pushed her through the hallway, Allison hot on her heels, a free-range rug burn.

"Jesus, her pulse is racing." Ramsey told Allison as the gurney was turned down the corner of another hallway of the hospital. "We need her BP and we need it now, so let's get a monitor. And she needs a liter of LR, stat."

Still half-conscious, Lydia worked to remove the mask from her face. Allison saw this and tried to get her to keep it on, but Lydia moved it enough so that she could speak.

"Seven...seven weeks. I'm pregnant, Allison...I'm...pregnant."

Looking up from Lydia, Allison locked eyes with Ramsey, who also had heard their one-sided exchange of dialogue. Worry laced in the eyes of the great resident

"We need to get to pre-op then." Ramsey shook her head. "Allison, find Julia Blake. Hurry."

Allison watched them step onto the elevator while she listened to Ramsey's orders, looking at Lydia like she was already a worst case, like there was already nothing they could do. But she shook herself, and found Julia walking with the Chief, Isaac tagging along while he told the Chief of Asher's need of a needle biopsy, to see if he had liver cancer. But Allison couldn't even focus on that when Lydia's state of life hung in the balance.

"I'm leaving, Alan." Julia was telling the Chief. "I was here for one patient and I can track the progress from Beacon Hills. Plus, it's not like Derek is advocating for me to stay."

"Should I leave?" Isaac added.

"Dr. Blake," interrupted Allison. "We need you, right now. It's Lydia. She's collapsed."

"Lydia's collapsed?" Alarm and terror was audible in Isaac's voice.

"But why do you need me?" Julia asked.

Allison didn't answer. She just stared at Julia while the three doctors before he understood why Dr. Blake was being requested.

"Oh my God, Lydia's pregnant!?"

"Shut up, Isaac." Allison scoffed, returning to Julia. "Please hurry."

As she lead Julia away from the nurse's station, Julia threw back over her shoulder, "I'm still not staying, Alan."

x

Scrubbing in on surgery with Derek and Scott, Stiles was in much better spirits. He felt like he had finally gotten control over his previously seeping emotions. Even though he wasn't doing any cutting, Stiles was just happy to have something to align his priorities to, something to block out the Asher Stilinski receptors that caused him to want to run away from Seattle and never return. And it didn't hurt that he got to look at Derek while he was blocking everything out either.

"Okay, Dr. McCall," Derek said, ever sounding like the elegant teacher he tried his best to always be. "If we're going to stop Mr. Atch's blushing, we have to expose the sympathetic ganglion chain. Now, where does such a thing live?"

Scott had opened his mouth to answer, but Deaton stormed in, Isaac hanging just off of him in the doorway.

"Hale, it's time to clear me for surgery. Right now."

"I'm in the middle of surgery, Chief." Derek said, not looking up from his patient or the performing of the surgery. "I'm too busy to give you every reason about why I'm not clearing you for surgery."

"I'm the Chief of Surgery, in case you've forgotten." Deaton was beginning to elevate his voice. "We'll do the paperwork later, just give a verbal okay and I'll have Lahey attest as a witness."

"It's been a week, Alan. Chief of Surgery or not, I'm your doctor and one week is not long enough of a recovery to perform a medical procedure."

"It's just a needle biopsy."

"So get a resident. I'm not clearing you, so you might as well save your breath and let me get back to my surgery."

Watching the endeavor unfold and change drastically, Stiles had a feeling. A certain nagging that he knew why the Chief was needing to perform such a surgery.

"It's my father." The look on Deaton's face confirmed it, as much as Stiles' didn't want to have such information attended to. "You think he might have cancer?"

"Isaac needs your signature, Stiles." Deaton nodded. "I'm sorry."

Leaving the OR, Stiles ripped off his gloves and followed Isaac out of the OR. They made their way to a counter just off of the scrub room and was assigning his signature to the forms.

"His bili, what's his total bili?"

"Four." Stiles nodded, giving the paperwork another flick of the pen he was holding. "Not great, but not terrible."

When he handed Isaac the forms, there was something readable on his face, something he was keeping hidden from him and lingering just beyond his eyes. Here his father was, needing to know if he had cancer or not, and Isaac was keeping something from Stiles.

"What is it?"

"What?"

"You're not telling me something, so just say it. What else is wrong with my father?"

"It's not your father." Isaac sighed. "It's Lydia."

x

Having just finished his surgery, Peter came out of the OR with a vengeance. He had to find Lydia, had to find out what was going on. It didn't matter what was going on between them, it only mattered that he cared for her and needed, craved to know what was happening with her. He was on his way to check the OR board when Deaton blocked his view.

"Great, you're done. I need you to do a needle biopsy."

"Uh, sorry, Chief, I have to check on my intern. She collapsed on me in surgery and I need-"

"You need," he stopped the Cardio God from furthering his sentence. "To do this needle biopsy. Because I need you to, because I asked you to. Nicely."

"Chief."

"Now, Peter. That's the last time I'm telling you." Deaton sighed. "It's for Asher Stilinski."

Seeing the need in his eyes, Peter nods, knowing that Deaton had known Asher for years, not to mention that Asher was Stiles' father and he wanted to help anyway he could. Peter left the OR board and the Chief to prepare Asher for the biopsy, knowing that he wouldn't be able to relax until he knew that Lydia was alright.

x

Julia was doing her best to remove Lydia's pregnancy in the OR. Ramsey was sitting behind Lydia, sitting in a chair just by her head, smoothing out her hair in an attempt to comfort her. Allison was observing the whole thing, every inch of her mind worrying that they weren't going to be able to help her friend, even though there was a dire need for Lydia's surgery to happen as quickly as possible.

"Is she going to make it?"

Not responding to Allison's question, Julia asked her own inquiry. "She was going to have this baby?"

"I don't know." the intern admitted. "Lydia's the most private out of all of us. Although that title could go to Stiles right about now, with everything going on with his dad."

"I heard," she nodded. "It's awful. Asher was something to be reckoned with, as was Claudia Leigh." Julia sighed again. "You know, I studied under a doctor that Claudia trained herself?"

"Really? So you're like the grand-doctor of the great Claudia Leigh?" Allison knew that she was supposed to hate Julia out of loyalty to Stiles, but this was amazing, and if Stiles could get passed his own issues, he could learn something about his mother from Julia.

"Lydia's lost a lot of blood." Back to the surgery at hand, Julia shifted paradigms. "But I think I've got it under control. Dr. Ramsey, you must have a surgery of your own to get to-"

"I'm fine. Right here, I'm fine." Ramsey assured her superior.

"Alright, then." Julia nodded. "Let's reverse this pregnancy then."

x

Washing his hands after the surgery, Derek was in the scrub room, finishing up and drying his hands when Scott and Stiles entered the room to do the same.

"Can you take over on the post-op?" Stiles sent this to Scott, not needing to glance over at Derek. "I have to check on Lydia as soon as I scrub."

"Yeah, what's going on with her anyway?"

A knee-jerk reaction, a would-be go to maneuver, Derek extended out his arms to Stiles, his hand touching his shoulder, trying to ease his pain with a touch, but Stiles sent him a rage-inducing look, one that told him to take his hand back while he still had the chance. Scott began to wash his hands, and Stiles did so as well as he sent daggers during his intense lock of looks with Derek.

"Don't!"

"I'm sorry-"

"Don't be sorry. Don't be anything! I'm so tired of you being sorry, Derek." Stiles sighed.

"Dr. Stil-"

"Don't!"

Still scrubbing, Scott did his best to keep his head down and let Stiles take out all of his feelings on the one that held the most of them.

"Dr. Stilinski…"

The annoyance reached it's peak at that professional delivery of his name, and Stiles was ready to let the neuro attending have the brute of what he had coming to him. "Seriously? 'Dr. Stilinski', he says. Are you worried about Scott finding out about us, as if I haven't already shared it with my friends because that's what you do when you're screwed over by the dreamy attending you were stupid enough to sleep with in the first place."

"Stiles, it's okay." Derek said, but none of it was okay. Absolutely nothing in Stiles' life was okay right now.

"It's not okay! You, doing this, being...you, is not okay. You're married! You have a wife!" He was screaming, and he didn't care. It was too much. So he had to, he just did. Letting everything out was his only option at this point. "You have a wife that's not easy to avoid or dislike." Stiles had finished scrubbing, and Scott had just left the room as Stiles dried his hands with some paper towels that were readily available. "She's painfully nice and annoyingly intelligent and in the process right now of saving my friend's life!"

"Stiles-"

"Don't! Stop talking to me like we're in a relationship. Stop talking to me at all."

He stormed out of the room, anger fueling every step he threw into the ground as he walked away from the OR, away from the scrub room, away from his feelings, away from his life, and most importantly, away from Derek.

He found the OR where they had Lydia and put on a mask and went to go inside to be with Lydia, but Ramsey wasn't having it. She left her seat before Lydia and ran over to the door where Stiles was trying to enter through.

"I'm coming in, Ramsey."

"No, Stiles, you're not."

"She's my friend."

"Exactly why you're not coming in here. She's naked and exposed, lying on the table. She's terrified out of her mind right now, even though she's sedated. Lydia deserves all the privacy she can get right now, so no, you're not coming in here."

Stiles ripped off his mask, tears wobbling uneven circles against his dark orbs as he stared at Ramsey intently.

"I knew...about the pregnancy and I-" He cut himself off, staring past Ramsey and looking at Lydia on the surgical table before seeing his resident's face gaining clarity again. "We went jogging this morning. Could that have…"

Ramsey, softening at Stiles' admittance and concern, gave a weak smile and her best sympathetic eyes. "No, it was going to happen this way, regardless. Nothing caused it. You didn't do anything wrong here."

"Please just…" Stiles stopped, not knowing how he was planning to finish his sentence, but pleading with his watery eyes anyway.

"We've got this. Go. We'll take care of her. Just go."

Nodding, Stiles tossed his mask in the trash and left for safer pastures, knowing that his places to hide from his problems was dwindling down faster than he could list them.

x

Derek was trying his best not to stare at Stiles Stilinski. Which was hard, given that he had, for whatever reason, taken a seat in the NICU's waiting room, and he was overseeing Julia's patient in the NICU. Luckily, Julia walked in so he wasn't as distracted by his earlier squabble with the intern.

"BP is stabilizing?" Julia asked, always the furrowed brow of business.

He nodded, and then he shook his head. "She's stronger. There's no reason behind why she would be stronger than this morning."

"I told you, Derek, she's a fighter." She smiled.

"If she makes it through the night, I'll operate, if she has a little bit more strength."

Smiling at each other, Julia strode over to Derek as he sat down in one of the many rocking chairs that the NICU had to offer for its various occupants.

"Okay, so we haven't talked."

"Julia." His sigh was deep and trench-life, but her persistence won out over his resistance.

"Hear me out. There's three scenarios here, in the Derek and Julia Era. One, I could say I'm sorry until...forever. You find some way to forgive me and come back to Beacon Hills, back to your life, our life, and we become the adults that we are and move on. Two, I can say I'm sorry, you forgive me, but you get to throw it in my face and become the passive-aggressive one and I have no say in the matter because, well, I deserve it." She laughed.

"Are you trying to make a joke right now?"

"Who said Satan couldn't be a stand-up comic?"

Shaking his head and hiding his smile, Derek asked, "And the third scenario?"

"I don't know what Three is," She braved, but she leaned down and placed a kiss on Derek's lips, and he couldn't resist because he had so much love for Julia, despite everything. He had married her for a reason, so he kissed her back. This action wasn't lost on her, because he felt her smile against him. When she stood upright again and looked over him, she said, "All I know is that I still love you, Derek."

Staring into her eyes, Derek didn't know how to feel. So much had transpired in his marriage. First Jackson, then the move to Seattle, and then Stiles. Now...now everything was a mess and Derek didn't need Alzheimer's to not recognize his life. But he knew that something had to change.

x

Isaac and Peter were walking toward the OR board, mainly because Isaac wasn't sure what else he was supposed to do after assisting Dr. Hale with Dr. Stilinski's needle biopsy. But it seemed that Peter was very keen on heading to the OR board like his life depended on it, and he could only assume it was because of Lydia.

"Go, Lahey." Peter finally turned around in time to tell him. "Tell the lab the Chief wants those results rushed. Say it's Asher Stilinski's biopsy."

"Yes, sir." He retreated to do as his attending had instructed him to do, but when Peter was just about to try and find Lydia's name on the OR board, assuming she had needed surgery, Isaac came running back to him. "Dr. Hale, should I order the histological grade and staging or any specific stains?"

"Run everything, Lahey, go."

Finally leaving him alone, Peter stared at the board and saw Lydia's name in bold looked to see what procedure she needed done and he felt all the air leave his lungs in a rush to remove itself from his body. Exploratory laparotomy, ectopic pregnancy. Lydia was pregnant. Pregnant with a baby. His baby.

Across the hospital in the ICU, Lydia was just waking up from her surgery, eyes faltering until they found Ramsey sitting next to her in a chair just to the side of her hospital bed. She felt battered, weak, beaten. Lydia felt like her body has been through a war, one that she had lost.

"What happened?"

Ramsey sighed, her features much glazed over and softer than Lydia had ever seen them. Although, she supposed it could have been the drugs that were altering her outlook on the outside world. "You had an extra uterine pregnancy. Your right fallopian tube burst and everything was so...Dr. Blake couldn't save the tube, there was just too much damage…"

Looking away from Ramsey, Lydia just stared at the ceiling before closing her eyes and sighing. If she had surgery, that meant that Peter knew. Peter knew that she had been pregnant, and that she had lost his baby.

x

Waking up from the surgery, Carter opened his eyes to see Stiles standing over him, and Scott scribbling in his chart as he was coming to.

"Hey."

Stiles smiled at him, looking up from his incision to stare into his eyes. "Hey there."

"It worked? The surgery worked, right?"

"It did." Stiles explained. "The surgery was a definite success. This is just us following up on you. Dr. Hale should be by shortly to check on you."

At the mention of Derek's name, nothing happened for Carter. No blushing. "Dr. Hale…" Carter started to cry and he realized that his life was finally forever changed by the surgery. No longer was he a victim to his emotions, to let the world know how he was feeling whenever he felt something, no matter how private the matter at hand. "I'm not blushing. I'm really not blushing."

Scott and Stiles exchange a look. Speaking up, Stiles looked at Carter and said, "I guess it was worth all of the risks."

Chuckling, they left Carter's room, sauntering away and talking amongst themselves as they receded from their patient's room.

"Despite it being successful, I still think it's sort of much to have a major surgery with more than a handful of risks just so people don't know how you're feeling."

"Really? You wouldn't care if everyone knew you liked Allison, even though all of us already know?"

Shoving him playfully, Scott and Stiles laughed. "Okay, maybe not."

They found a spot near the nursery, making faces at all of the newborn babies when Scott could see past the layers of defense that Stiles was spinning around himself, pulling over his raw feelings.

"You know, I'm here. I'm still here. I know you've been getting close with Lydia, and that's great. You both went through Attending Affection Boot Camp together and that bonds you, but I'm still here, Stiles. We can still talk about anything and everything."

"I know, Scott." Stiles smiled. "I know you are, but I'm fine."

"Okay, you're so not fine." Stiles shifted in place, looking away from the babies and seeing the true defiance in Scott's crooked brow. "You've said those words, 'I'm fine', over and over today. So many times that it doesn't even sound like a word anymore. You're not fine. And that's okay."

"It's...a lot." He felt the emotion rising like a tsunami inside of him, but he wasn't letting it capsize just yet. He couldn't risk it.

"Listen, if it were me and I was the one who was dealing with my father having cancer, I'd be halfway through my second bottle of tequila."Scott inched closer to Stiles, tapping his arm affectionately. "You're stronger than you're giving yourself credit for."

"The truth, though? I'm not afraid he has cancer." Stiles sniffled, even though tears had yet to drop down his face, his sinuses betraying him anyway. "I'm scared that he doesn't have cancer."

Scott nodded, getting what he was trying to convey. "Yeah, liver cancer...that's fast. Quick, clean. And they give you a shit ton of morphine. The same can't exactly be said for Alzheimer's."

"No, it can't." Looking back to the babies, Stiles sighed. "Am I an awful person?" He found Scott's eyes on him once again. "Am I awful for hoping that my father has cancer?"

x

Isaac had taken it upon himself to wait with Stiles for the results of his father's biopsy. A word hadn't been spoken between the two since he had sat down with the anticipating son. Allison came trotting over to them, sitting in between Stiles and Isaac.

"Still waiting?"

"Yeah." Isaac answered for Stiles, who had his head down and turned away from the pair of friends.

"How's Lydia?"

Stiles questions sparked surprise to flash over their faces, not expecting him to speak with him being faced away.

"She's...alive." Allison said, wishing that her voice didn't sound as bleak as it did, given the verity that their friend had survived the surgery. "She'll be okay, but there's going to be days filled with pain for Lydia."

Lifting his head up, Stiles regarded Allison with a small smile. "I'm glad you were there, in the surgery with her."

"You are?"

"Of course, I am." Stiles reacted positively. "One of us should be in there with her."

"I just wasn't sure you wanted anyone but you in there, with you and Lydia as close as you are. Sometimes it seems like you and Lydia are over there, being we-slept-with-our-bosses with one another, and here the rest of us are...expecting more from our attendings."

"Allison…"

"Sorry, I'm just...I'm glad I was there too."

"Here you go." The lab tech interrupted, handing Stiles a piece of paper for him to examine. "Results for Asher Stilinski."

Silently reading the results, Stiles didn't move. He took in the results, and then gave them over to Isaac. "You'll let him know?"

He got up from his seat, strutting away without looking at either of his friends. "Stiles, are you okay?"

"No. No, I'm not okay."

x

Asher was lying very still in his bed. The procedure at left him sore, and he didn't want to do anything but sleep, even if it was escaping him at the moment. Isaac walked in then, the biopsy results in his hand while he passed doorway and made his amble inside.

"Dr. Stilinski…"

"Ugh, Aaron, please. Go away. I've had a very long day and I'm tired."

"No, Asher." Isaac figured if he looked like Asher's brother, maybe he could at least get some things to seep into his diseased brain. "No, I'm not going away. I'm your brother, and I care about you, even if you hate me. But I don't always like you either, so I'm not going anywhere. I hate the way you talk to me and, more importantly, I hate the way you talk to Stiles. You're his father. He deserves a lot better from you, Asher."

Soaking in the words, actually hearing them, Asher cleared his throat. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"Really?"

"There's something wrong with me, Aaron." Asher sighed. "What is it?"

"The mass on your liver-"

"It's chemistry?" His brain his greatest enemy, Asher thought more about trying to get the right words out. "I mean, is it chem...shit." He sighed deeply, tired of what had been plaguing him for most of his adult life. "Is it malignant?"

"No," Isaac scoffed, shaking his head slowly, reluctantly. "No, it's benign."

x

A roller coaster. That's what the day had been for Derek Hale. With Julia's preemie patient, Stiles' hatred in the scrub room, and then Julia kissing him...everything was a blurred edge, something just outside of his reach. He needed to figure everything out. And that was hard to do when he wasn't alone. So he was leaving Seattle Grace for the night, clear on what he needed from himself when he walked outside of the doors leading to and from the hospital and saw Stiles sitting on a bench, sobbing profusely.

"Stiles?"

He didn't say anything, couldn't say anything, because his cries were too severe to admit a response to slither off his tongue.

"Stiles."

"Don't." Stiles mimicked the words he had been pleading Derek with all day. It was all he had left. "Please, Derek, just don't say anything."

But that was harder said than done. Derek wanted, more than he wanted to sort his life out on his own, to console Stiles, to hold him and convince him that everything would turn around, that everything was going to be okay in due time, but some part of him...some better part of him knew that he couldn't do that. Stiles didn't need any more reasons to hate Derek. And the attending certainly wasn't going to give him any more.

"Alright."

Still standing there, he watched as Stiles lifted himself from the bench and stopping just before him, standing now just inches from his face, their breathing synchronizing together like swimmers intent on winning a race together as rain fell behind them. The perfect backdrop for how everything was between them.

"I'm just tired." Stiles was still crying, but it was subsiding enough so that he could talk. "My father is tiring. What just happened with Lydia...and you, Derek. Hating you is the most tiring thing that I've ever done."

Grabbing his face, knowing that he was still crying and tears were still fresh on his face, Stiles kissed Derek roughly at first, and then softened the kiss as Derek leaned into it, accepting the gift of his admiration expressed through their mutual lip-lock. Stiles pulled away, looking into Derek's eyes and seeing himself, seeing the sharp exhaustion that beat throughout his body as easily as his heart continued to pump his blood.

"I don't want to do it anymore."

Stunned, Derek was left to watch Stiles walk back inside the safety of the hospital, his earlier thoughts of figuring things out clouded by getting kisses from Julia, the wife that he had separated from and left Beacon Hills to get away from, and Stiles, the thriving surgical intern that threatened to overtake every ounce of his heart, unable to know what he was going to do next.


	4. Sometimes The Bullet Is Worth It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The interns tend to Lydia as she recovers from her surgery, which enables her to start treating a patient of Peter's without proper instruction. Julia offers Derek an out, one he's conflicted about as he decides on whether or not she stays in Seattle. Allison gives Scott a chance to win her over with a date and Stiles finds his answer on whether or not he and Derek will ever happen again.

The Yellow Brick Bar was buzzing with the doctors of Seattle Grace Hospital. Joel, the owner, was tending bar and slewing drinks to all his favorite doctors, some of which had played a huge or minor part in his ability to be handing out drinks to them. Allison was bringing drinks to the table, setting down a slew of shots for Isaac and Stiles. Their pack was a little short, given that Scott was still working at the hospital, and Lydia was still a patient and recovering from her miscarriage.

“She claims she’s fine.” Isaac was telling them as he let the liquid fire of the tequila attack his better judgment, both Allison and Stiles doing the same. “At least before I came here. She practically yelled me out of the room before I headed over.”

“That’s Lydia being Lydia.” Allison told him. “There’s no way that she could go through what she went through and can come out from the other side of it without any residual heartache.”

“Lydia can.” Isaac nodded.

“She’s fine. Lydia is fine.” Stiles assured them. Considering he was becoming the closest to Lydia, if anyone would know, it would definitely had been Stiles. Lydia was coping, in Lydia’s own way, which was to say using her overused skill of ignorance.

“Maybe she’s a little too fine.”

“Lydia has steel veins, Allison. She’s kickass, and she’s fine.”

Rolling her eyes at Isaac, Allison tossed another shot before saying, “She was pregnant, and she lost the baby. That’s not fine. Lydia is good, but she’s actually like she’s the best she’s ever been, like she hasn’t just suffered through a severe tragedy. Lydia Martin is soulless.”

“God, she’s going to be the best surgeon.”

“Isaac.”

“What? The surgeons who prove that they can handle anything, especially in their intern years, are the ones that win things like the Harper Avery.”

“Some people can keep things to themselves.” Stiles added.

The door to the bar rang loudly in their ears, bringing Stiles attention to the handsome doctor that just ambled into the Yellow Brick Bar. Except for the fact that the excruciatingly handsome doctor happened to be Derek Hale. He turned away from him, so that he could only slightly watch Derek as opposed to full on staring at him. He joined who looked like Dr. Ramsey at the bar, whom Stiles had failed to notice was even in the dim-lighted establishment. He looked away. Not because he really wanted to, especially after his admittance to Derek last week about not wanting to hate him anymore, but because he had to. Because he needed to.

Derek sat down next to Ramsey, the dark-humored resident who seemed to be at least feeling the flapping of a buzz in her system.

“Scotch, double, please.”

His drink fell on the counter before him quickly, allowing him the burn of the brown liquor to bring down his walls, setting his eyes on Ramsey before he just blurted it all out.

“Stiles kissed me. Julia kissed me, and then he kissed me.” Derek laughed to himself, trying to see if Ramsey had heard him, but seeing a hard stare in place of her emotions as he went on. “My boyfriend and my wife kissed me around the same day and I don’t know what I should do. I should do something, right?”

“Oh God,” Ramsey sighed, looking across the counter of the bar and looking Joel dead set in his dark eyes. “Joel, what did I do to deserve this?”

“Come on, Helena. He needs a friend.”

“He gets to call you Helena?” Derek smiled.

“Not anymore.” The delivery of the stare Joel received sent him to the employees only section of the bar, hiding from the further heat of her gaze. “McDreamy, please go gossip to someone who likes you and isn’t completely put off by your perfectly imperfect hair.”

Because he clearly liked her company, for some unknown reason to the smaller doctor, Derek went on to say, “It’s going to work out, I think, it really is. Julia is heading back to California so Stiles and I can have a fresh start, a clean slate, and everything will be back to the way it was.”

Surprisingly, Ramsey threw her head back and laughed, though it was unclear to Derek whether or not her head was thrown back by choice or because of the alcohol in her system had loosened up her limbs. “If you really believe that, they should call you McDimwitted.”

x

Alcohol pulsed out of their systems, the interns were making their rounds with Ramsey, stepping into their first patient’s room and waiting for Ramsey to shoot them the glare, the one that told one of them to step up and present the case for her. But this patient was already having a huge pow wow of nurses and other unrecognizable personnel, which was not how Ramsey had wanted the room to have started out being, which was crowded.

“Who’s birthday is it, because that’s the only reason I can think of for why there’s so many people breathing in this room right now. Go.”

Her bark was enough to scare everyone but the patient out of the room, her reputation following her around like a formidable pit bull, stereotypically ready to lap the blood from their heels as they ran away afraid and alone.

“Sorry about that.” The patient, a young woman with tied back blonde hair told Ramsey. “I was just telling some stories of missionary life.” When a pair of raised eyebrows were visible from her hospital bed, she added. “My parents, they’re the missionaries, so we get around. Different cities, countries, all the time.”

“That’s amazing.” Allison stated, smiling at her, but Ramsey was staring at her, so she cleared her throat and decided it was up to her to present the case. “Um, this is Leera Anaplak, Uncle Ha-, I mean, Dr. Hale’s patient, who presents with ventricular arrhythmias and multiple syncopal episodes.”

“How many fainting spells have you had, Leera?”

Leera shrugged her shoulders at the question still hanging around Ramsey’s smaller frame. “A fair amount, I guess. I’ve also been having some palpitations.”

“Medical history of rheumatic heart disease with mitral valve stenosis.” Allison tacked on at the end, like the perfect period to the patient’s tale of sickness.

“Can you tell me the primary causes of ventricular arrhythmias, Dr. Argent?”

“Valvular disease,” They all turned around to see a hospital gown-donning Lydia Martin limping herself through the doorway of the room, the shock on their faces fueling her delivery of the answer she had begun. “Mitral valve prolapse, drugs, metabolic abnormalities, and stimulants.”

Several sets of eyes befell her, looks of astonishment from her peers, worry from Stiles, and palpable annoyance from her surgical superior.

“Leave!” Ramsey screeched at her, her pointed finger silently directing her to where she was supposed to be, which was anywhere from the doctoring of patients.

“How many times have I told you people that I’m-”

“A patient,” Ramsey finished for her, “And not a doctor this week. So, I repeat, leave. You have fifteen seconds to be in your room, Lydia, we’re rounding on you next.”

Mocking Ramsey with an unpleasantly distorted face, Lydia leaned on the rolling IV drip that had accompanied her during her trek from her room. As she was walking, the air from her movement widened the gap from the back of her gown, allowing everyone of them to glimpse at her “Wednesday” panties.

“It’s Friday, Martin.”

Scott’s comment caused all of her fellow interns to scream laughing, despite being chastised by Ramsey as they fled from Leera’s room. Lydia turned back around, spinning sloppily on her heels as she eyes Scott evenly. “You wish you had this, German Shepherd.”

Once they were in Lydia’s room, her friends saw that her mother was in attendance, clearly feeling like it was her duty as the woman who had bore Lydia in her womb for nine months to come to her aid during something had heart wrenching as losing a baby.

“Lydia Martin,” Stiles said, starting his presentation of his friend’s current condition. “Post-op three days from a unilateral salpingectomy.”

“Three days since I’ve practiced any medicine,” Lydia sputtered, looking from Stiles to Ramsey. “I’m fully capable of coming back to work. Today.”

“She is?” This was from matriarch Natalie Martin, who didn’t seem to have the same grip on medical situations as her daughter did.

“My pain is being controlled, I feel great, taking solids. I’m ready, I swear.” Her pleading with her resident continued, but even she was beginning to doubt it’s effectiveness.

“But what about her fever this morning-”

“Mother!”

Her friends had to metaphorically glue their mouths shut from laughing, but Ramsey just rolled her eyes, a small smile her lips before looking back to Lydia. “Did you have a fever this morning, Lydia?”

“101 last night, but who cares! I worked with the flu last month and my temp peaked at 103!”

“And that’s stupid, but commendable, but you’re staying right where you are until you’re clear of fever-inducing body temperatures. Get better this week so you can continue being a doctor next week, Martin. Get some rest, okay?”

They all went to leave, but Lydia managed to grab a hold of Stiles’ coat sleeve, keeping him back for a few seconds as Lydia lowered her voice, low enough so her mother couldn’t interpret it.

“You have to do something, Stiles, I’m going to end up hurting her.” She let her eyes gloss over to Natalie, letting him understand the ‘her’ in question.

“Ramsey’s right, Lydia. You need time.”

He left the room as she yelled, “But I’m better! I am!”

The next person on their list for rounds was Asher Stilinski, who was looking very agitated this morning for some reason that may have happened recently, or may have happened more than twenty years ago, or even before Stiles had been born.

“Lahey, go.”

Isaac nodded, shifting from Ramsey to look at Asher. “Dr. Stilinski is post-op day three from a tumor resection.”

“I didn’t do a tumor resection this week, no, no, no.” Asher shook his head vehemently. “It was a cranial reconstruction.” He sighed, crossing his arms across his burly chest. “I keep telling them not to send me novices.”

“Asher is-”

He stopped Isaac again, saying, “My guy needs a Nissen fundoplication.” The eyes of his father fell on Stiles then, scrutinizing everything that made his son up, down to the very last atom. “I want him out of here.”

“Dad!” Stiles recoiled vocally, but there was nothing to combat when his father wasn’t really even there.

“He’s a child,” Asher looked to Ramsey because despite his memory depletion, he knew who was in charge. “I don’t need him to scrub in.”

“You can wait outside, Dr. Stilinski.”

Sighing, Stiles left the room and happened upon Derek as he rounded the corner away from his father’s room. A look of curiosity left Derek and pulsed against Stiles’ temple until he made eye contact with Derek, unable to avoid the contact that was about to take place between them.

“I thought you were doing rounds?”

“Oh, my father doesn’t want his incompetent son around him during rounds.”

“Stiles-”

“You still have a wife.”

“I do.”

“Complicated doesn’t even begin to describe how your life is right now.”

“Yes.”

“So you get that I don’t need that. I’m fully complicated without your complicated.”

“Correct.”

“Okay, the agreeing? Kind of what got you into this mess in the first place.”

Sly lips lifted Derek’s expression to a look of deviance. “Don’t move. You can’t be seen if you don’t move.”

“Are you cutting jokes right now?”

“Stiles, relax.” He knew that Asher riled up Stiles in ways that he didn’t fully comprehend, but he was trying to at least alleviate some of the pressure he was sure the younger MD was feeling in the small space between his shoulder blades. “She’s leaving. Julia, she’s finished with her patients so she has no reason not to return to Beacon Hills.”

“Are you sure?” Stiles’ scrutiny wasn’t something Derek had expected, but it was definitely something he could handle. “There’s not some reason, at all, for why she could be hanging around? Like, a reason that’s tall, dark, and stupidly gorgeous and within talking distance?”

“I would have thought intelligently handsome, honestly.”

For a spare moment, he let a hand graze upon Stiles’ cheek, an action that the latter actually allowed to transpire when Julia came strutting up to them, watching the scene with wide eyes of amusement and a stained grin permanently transfixed on her soften features.

“Ooh, hot exchange in the hallway.” Julia laughed, bending closer to Stiles so that she was closer to his ear, but speaking loud enough for her husband to hear that words escaping between her red-dyed lips. “You know, you’re cute enough for a ménage a tois, but is Derek really up for it?”

“Goodbye.”

Stiles walked as fast as he could away from the both of them, leaving the married couple to hash it out in the corner of the hospital, like they usually seemed to do.

“Satan. You are Satan.”

“I’m not Satan, Derek.” She was beginning to tire of this analogy.

“If he could take human form, lose the horns and tail and red skin, he would choose to become you and vice versa.”

“Are you done being childish?”

“Are you done being a selfish bitch?”

The elevator next to them chimed it’s way to allow entry, but neither of them took the ascended ride to separate floors, continuing their squabble quietly.

“You know, I thought after the other night, you might have been on your way to forgiveness.”

“The only thing I want to be on the way is you back to Beacon Hills.” Derek sighed, feeling the formings of a headache creeping in between his already overstimulated eyes.

Her bag feeling suddenly heavy of her impending proposition to Derek, Julia retrieved the file from its contents and thrashed it against Derek’s chest until his hand stopped them from slipping to the sterile linoleum. Unbeknownst to either of them, Stiles was on the second floor, watching their exchange, seeing the papers that Derek was flipping through at that exact moment.

“Divorce papers.” Julia breathed the words out like the burned her throat, and for all she knew, they had because a sudden taste of copper filled her mouth, like her skin had been scorched by her diction and it was seconds away from filling with blood. “This is your choice, Derek. I’m not fighting anymore. If you sign them, I’ll sign and I’ll be back in Beacon Hills by the end of the day.”

“Fantastic.” Derek beamed. “I’ll sign them immediately so you can get out of Seattle and get back to ordering your demons around in Hell.”

“Have you ever thought,” Julia said, slithering over to him in her snake-like glide to purr her sentiments closer to his face so that the words really beat against his pores like a moisturizer or vocabulary. “That maybe even if I am Satan in human form and a selfish bitch that I might be a selfish bitch disguised as Satan that you still have feelings for?”

Opening again, Julia flitted onto the elevator as Derek read over the terms of the divorce, Stiles onlooking from the floor above, wondering what would happen if Derek knew that the awareness of said papers were known by his ex-boyfriend.

x

Lydia was making notes in her own chart when Peter walked into the room. They hadn’t talked since he had found out. About the surgery, about the baby. He harbored a lot of mixed feelings about it. Guilt, over ending things with Lydia while she had been pregnant with his child. Sadness, over losing something that he had always wanted, despite the timing not being on his side. And lastly, and more consuming, he felt anger. White hot rage at Lydia for not telling him, for not trusting him enough to go over every option with him when what she was carrying, what she had been carrying, wasn’t just her burden to bare.

“Doctors fill those out.” She looked up at him in time for him to snatch the chart away from her. “You’re a patient right now.”

“But it’s mine.”

Sighing, Peter looked at her, and she looked at him too, and he waited as long as he could before breaking the wordless gaze they were keeping before his need to speak broke it. “Talking to you alone has proven to be difficult.”

“Peter, we don’t have to-”

“You’re feeling alright?”

It wasn’t the first thing she had figured would slip out of the corners of his mouth. A smooth recovery was needed before she had an appropriate response. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m...I’m alright.”

“I had every right to know.”

There it was. “You know now. End of discussion.”

“Lydia-”

“You ended things.” Her vulnerability was licking at his face, and he caused him even more of that earlier guilt he had already been welling with. “You had no rights left, when you did that. You tossed aside your rights so don’t come in here and claim stake to something you had already given up on. That’s it.”

“That’s not it! You-”

“Mom,” She spoke this loudly, so Peter would know to stop talking. Partly because her mother didn’t need to hear that Peter was the father of the baby she had lost and partly because she didn’t want to hear anything else from Peter Hale, at that moment or really at all. “This is Dr. Hale, head of Cardio.”

“Ooh, nice to meet you, Dr. Hale.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Mrs. Martin.”

“Oh, please, it’s Ms.” Natalie smiled at her daughter. “So proper. Why can’t you ever bring a proper man like this home to meet me sometime?”

“Mom.”

“What? He’s charming and handsome.”

“Mom.”

“Are you single, Dr. Hale.”

“Mom!”

Rolling her eyes, Natalie just shook her head. “Excuse my daughter, Doctor. She failed to learn manners or tact despite my best efforts.”

“STOP TALKING.”

“Well, I should be on my way.” Peter decided that it was a lost cause to discuss anything else with Lydia at this point, least of all with her mother present in the room. “Nice meeting you, Ms. Martin.”

Natalie stared at Peter’s ass on his way out, causing her daughter to throw a pillow at her. “Ow, what did I do?”

“Stop oogling to my boss!”

x

“Good morning, Asher.”

The beam of pride that he gave Alan at that moment was great. It was a blessing in disguise that Asher didn’t have the best memory. Deaton had secrets, dark secrets, secrets that cringed in the daylight. And Asher Stilinski having no control over what he may or may not have already known helped Alan Deaton keep a close eye on his secrets.

“Alan, thank God. What intern is scrubbing in with me today?” He presented Isaac, who had been standing behind him. “Great, let’s get started.”

“I’m sorry, get started?”

“Yeah, I have a barium esophagram in OR 2, let’s go.” Asher nodded.

“Sir,” This was to Alan, who gave him a mean stare. “This isn’t surgical.”

“This is your patient, Lahey. Don’t let me down.”

Yes, having his secrets safe was very important to Alan as he left Asher with Isaac. Because if someone was tending to his secrets, they had zero chance of spreading their knowledge to the world. Or to an oblivious child of his secrets that happened to be roaming the halls of the hospital as his father prepared for a surgery that didn’t exist.

x

“I saw that.”

Overruling the nurse into letting her take the wheelchair hadn’t been the hard part for Lydia. Manning the wheelchair also wasn’t hard, taking the chart of Peter’s arrhythmia case wasn’t hard. But what was hard was calling out Leera over seeing her take something and ingest it.

“What?” Leera asked, gulping down some water to ease the path of the pill. “I’m just on the pill.”

“It’s not in your chart.” Lydia countered.

Allison, being the actual intern on the case, swooped in and took the chart from her, glaring down at her in the wheelchair and snickering. “You badgered a nurse into not only allowing you access to a wheelchair but also wrangling a chart away from them?”

“I have out of bed to chair privileges.”

“This is not what that means.”

“She took something!”

That’s when Leera coded, and they tended to her collapse on the floor by calling a code, Lydia straining to lift out of her chair to hit the blue button on the wall while Allison tried to administer something to help her.

“Allison, she needs an echo!”

“Someone page Cardio!” A nurse came by then, attempting to assist in anyway, which Allison used to the fullest extend of her ability. “Get Dr. Martin back to her room, please.”

“Let’s mark her chart if she’s taking OCPs, Allison!” Lydia yelled as she was wheeled away.

Slamming a fist on Leera’s chest, she slowly came out of v-fib, eliminating the need for a code and hoping that Peter could help her make sense of her patient.

x

Reading Ramsey’s scans in Radiology, Stiles saw something that he was hoping he was right about assuming when he presented it to the resident.

“He has a mass.”

Ramsey nodded, relief flooding his senses. “In his midepigastrium. Diffused enlargement of the pancreas. Paired with his hypoglycemic seizures and-”

“He needs exploratory laparotomy.” Stiles added. “Don’t his lungs make you a little weary about cutting?”

“Absolutely. Tate’s triathlons definitely are over.”

Sauntering into the room then, of course, had to be Julia Blake, because Stiles’ life was plagued by visits from either Derek or the wife he was seemingly attempting to divorce.

“Doctors.”

“Hi, Dr. Blake.” Ramsey said back to her, watching as Julia set her eyes on the patient's films.

“How old is this patient?”

“Tatum Gerome, 26. He has cystic fibrosis.”

“Good, he’s a survivor.”

“At least for the past five years that I’ve treated him.” Ramsey nodded. “This patient has been through a lot. Almost as much as he’s caused, but we can’t just do nothing. I refuse to stop having his back after all this time.”

“Have you scheduled the laparotomy?” Julia inquired.

“That was the plan, but look at his lungs.”

“Dr. Ramsey, I might be of some assistance on this. There was something similiar in a nine year old that I’ve seen. A total pancreatectomy ending up having to be the procedure to best procure him.”

“I can use all the help I can get.” Ramsey nodded. “I normally don’t allow myself to get too close to patients, but this one really means alot to me.”

“Understood,” A smile, like usual, stained Julia’s face. “I’ll make some time.”

“Aren’t you neonatal? What could you possibly bring to this case?”

Stiles knew that he shouldn’t have said it, shouldn’t have let his personal feelings cloud the medicine of his patient but it was uncontrollable, like a metronome had been started and couldn’t turn off his dialogue. Ramsey’s eyes grew wide fast, and Stiles had to do damage control as Julia shaped her look in his direction.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Blake, I was just curious given that your specified field is a little more attuned to other types of patients.”

“I actually did two years of genetic cystic fibrosis research, Dr. Stilinski, I’ve seen more than you could imagine of cases just like this.”

“Right.” Stiles chuckled lightly. “Apologies, once again.”

So now Stiles knew about the divorce papers Julia had given Derek, even though the latter didn’t know that he knew, and he was being forced to work with Julia yet again. Life sure was playing him a hard hand, and he was out of easy moves.

x

“It doesn’t mean she’s staying.”

He was quick to run to Derek’s side after Julia had assigned herself to his case with Ramsey. They were taking the stairs together, wandering in succession like two symphonies clashing off-key to the same song.

“Then what does it mean, Derek? Because…” He couldn’t say it yet. The thing about the divorce papers. It was Derek’s news to tell. It wouldn't be right if Stiles had announced it in some sort of reversal news telling.

“She’s Satan, but she’s a good doctor. Ramsey cares about the patient, just let her help so she can get on a quicker flight back to California. They rounded another corner and Derek stepped in front of Stiles so that he bumped into his a little bit, seemingly needing the contact. “Stiles, she gave me divorce papers. Julia filed, she’s leaving.”

A smile curled his lips, but Stiles tried his best to subdue it. It just so happened that this had been weighing on him and now he felt as flightful as a kite.

“She did?” He also tried to feign any knowledge of said papers.

“I sign and I’m free of her devilish grip on me. On us.”

“Us.”

Yes, us.”

Their smiles were unmatched by the happiness of anyone around them, around Seattle, maybe around the entire state of Washington. Derek was saying that there was nothing standing in there way anymore. They could be Stiles and Derek again. Before they wife, before the lies, before the betrayal of trust. They could be the men from the bar again. They could be them again.

x

Scott found Allison loitering around the nursery, where all the recent babies that were recently birthed were placed until further notice. It was a spot that he knew Stiles seemed to frequent, when he needed to get away. So it was only natural for him to wonder how Allison’s day was going if she was smiling lazily at all the new generations in their designated room of well being.

 

“Rough day?”

She met his gaze with ease, smiling back at him before looking back at all the beautiful babies before her. “No, just needing some inspiration, I guess.”

“Inspiration?”

“My patient, the missionary or whatever. She claims she has a PHD but when I was just in her room and Peter scheduled the echo, she acted like she was an MD.” Allison shook her head. “Something’s off and I can’t figure out what it is. But anyway, how are you? Heard you were with Derek on a GSW to the head and the guy is still talking.”

Scott shrugged. “Claims he was cleaning his gun and it went off. How it missed all the major parts of the brain is beyond me.”

“So you don’t believe him then?”

“Just a feeling.”

“Too bad we can’t just go off of our feelings.” Allison giggled.

“Why not?”

The stunning sparkle in his eye was something of a spectacle for Allison to witness. She hadn’t prepared for it, or thought that it would happen in the moment for her to see. “We’re...not talking about our patients now, are we?”

“Go to dinner with me.” When Allison looked like she was about to run in the other direction, Scott pressed on. “You said you liked me too. I like you, you like me, what’s the big deal? Yes, we work closely and I’m over at the house all the time, but I don’t have to be if it's too much for you. Allison, I can push back my feelings about my patient because that’s medicine and I need to let medicine decide the course of treatment. But this,” He wagged a finger between them, motioning toward both of their frames. “Us, this isn’t medicine. This is chemical. All I’m asking, is you think about going to dinner with me. You wear something gorgeous and I pay for dinner. It’s as easy as that. Just think about it.”

He’d be lying if he said the struggle for Allison to contain a grin wasn’t completely cruising his mood elevators. He saw when Allison smoothed a stray strand of her brunette hair behind her ear that she had already made a decision about his insistent proposition.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I said okay.” She laughed. “I’ll meet you at Joel’s after our shift?”

“I’ll be there.”

She walked away then, leaving the success of their date boost Scott’s confidence as he made his way back to his GSW with Derek, trying to not overthink about the hot date he had later with Allison Argent.

x

Minding her own business was easy. Helena Ramsey was a woman of her own destiny, of her own guidance. She was a one woman band and she played every instrument well. So when Derek Hale entered the elevator with her and her alone, he was disrupting her way. And that was something that just set her off, especially on a day where her thoughts were wrapped around the further care of a patient that had been with her since she was an intern.

“Why did you let Julia weasel her way onto your case?”

“That’s enough, Hale.”

Derek wasn’t letting up. She could tell by the intense angle of his perfectly groomed eyebrows. “She’s supposed to be leaving, going back to Beacon Hills and forgetting her way to Seattle so that I can get back to what I came here to do, which is get away from her, and you’re hindering her leaving by letting her assign herself to your patient.”

Without even missing a moment, Ramsey went over to the control panel of the elevator and pressed the emergency button that stopped the rise and fall of the elevator, leaving them suspended so she could deliver what she was sure to be an award winning speech that would cut Derek Hale down to size.

“Ramsey, you don’t have to-”

“Do you think I care what’s going on with you and your wife right now? You think that I base any of my decisions, throughout my entire day, based on what’s happening in the trials and tribulations of Seattle’s newest brain surgeon?” Ramsey stepped closer to him. “I am dealing with a patient that I care for, that I’ve cared for for a long time, one that means a lot to me, Hale, so forgive me if I use the talents of anyone who could possibly help my patient get better. Are we clear on that?”

“You’re right, but-”

“No,” Ramsey threw up a hand, laughing a little as she squared herself in his eyes. “You’ve gotten yourself into a huge mess, in between two fine doctors, and you’re looking for a simple clean up. Nothing about that is simple. Make a decision, deal with the consequences, and grow up.”

She started the elevator again, Derek speechless in the wake of her tyrannical rant about Derek Hale and the love life he was having to thrive within.

x

In the tunnels, Stiles and Lydia had found some peace and quiet. Lydia was still in her wheelchair, having found their hangout to be the perfect place to go over Peter’s patient with the mysterious arrhythmias, Stiles was just sitting on one of the abandoned beds, going over in his mind the day's events, which he had yet to tell Lydia about.

“She gave him divorce papers.” Stiles nodded. “Julia filed and gave them to Derek this morning. That’s good, right? He’s moving on and maybe, if he wants to, he could move on with me, which is stupid of me, I know, but have you seen him? He’s just so...whatever. I mean, Julia is still here, in the hospital, being Queen Julia of Neonatal, but it’s fine. Because I’m not envious or anything stupid.”

Lydia hadn’t responded to the entire utterance because she was so engrossed by going over Leera’s chart. “Weird.”

“It’s weird that I’m not envious?”

“No, you have every right to be envious.” Lydia looked up at Stiles, realizing that he wasn’t going to let up unless she acknowledged his feelings. “It’s your house and she’s a wrecking ball tearing it down.”

“Derek’s a house now?”

“What’s weird,” Lydia began, choosing to turn the conversation back towards Leera. “Is Peter’s patient. She’s been in four other hospitals this year alone. That’s not normal. Something isn’t right.”

“Are you really this interested in this patient or is this some pathetic attempt to stay connected to Peter even after you swore you had nothing else to give him?”

“This has nothing to do with Peter.” she sighed.

“Lydia, you lost the father of your child, your fallopian tube, and said baby all in the same space of time. You have a right to be upset.”

“And you have a right to be envious, you’re losing McDreamy to his flawless wife.”

“I’m not losing McDreamy to anyone. Divorce papers, remember? And I’m not envious. There’s no room for envy when there’s divorce papers freshly drawn up.”

“Well, I’m not upset.”

“You know, you should be resting in your room. With your lovely mother.”

Lydia rolled her eyes, growling at Stiles. “If the situation were reversed, would you want to be confined to a room with your father without any means of escape?”

A sign drooping his smile, Stiles nodded. “We aren’t them, are we? Our parents, I mean. We’re nothing like them, right?”

Staring was the only means of Lydia’s answer, and it left Stiles feeling uncertain about his claim. Leaving the tunnels, Stiles felt the need to actually check up on his father. It was hard, even harder having him here in the hospital, but Stiles still cared about Asher Stilinski like he had never gotten his disease, because he’d always been there. Only sometimes he wasn’t mentally able to arrive.

But when he got to his father’s room, he wasn’t physically there either.

A nurse came by, a guy named Taylor that Stiles would probably consider his favorite. Plus, he was aesthetically pleasing to look at. Crossing his arms, he looked to Taylor when he too noticed the empty bed.

“Wait, where’s your dad?”

“My thoughts exactly. Where the hell is my father?”

Isaac burst through the room, eyes widening at the empty bed in the room. “Where’s your dad?”

“Funny, coming from his intern!” Stiles yelled back at him.

“Shit.”

x

Scott was going over the MRI scans of his bullet patient, seeing that he had indeed shot himself. Or someone had, because there was a definite bullet in his head.

“This guy is up and talking. This is insane.”

“It’s definitely a bullet.” He turned to see Asher Stilinski standing over him, clad in dark blue attending scrubs. You’d never know that he had Alzheimer's and didn’t work at Seattle Grace if you didn’t know better of it. “Tracked clear through his head. He needs surgery, so let’s get moving.”

Isaac came barreling in, wheelchair in tow. “Dr. Stilinski, they need you upstairs.” It of course was a lie, but that’s what you sort of had to do when your patient didn’t have concrete memories. Asher’s mind was fluid and sporadic, popping up random access to his life whenever the certain memories wanted to be relived.

He thought he had everything handled, even dismissing the look of inadequacy on Scott’s face, but the Chief sauntered up to them then, seeing that Asher was just now getting into the wheelchair.

“Is there something I’ve missed, Dr. Lahey?”

“Absolutely not, sir, I have this covered.”

He spun the wheelchair and left with Asher then, hoping that he could get back to surgery soon and not having to deal with the mental Swiss cheese brain of Stiles’ father.

Once his father was back where he was supposed to be, Stiles made his way back into Tatum Gerome’s room, where both Ramsey and Julia were to explain the scans to him. Ramsey was standing close to Tatum, close enough that their hands could touch if they wanted them to.

“Tate, it’s looking like the pancreas. It has to come out and then we have to re-route your intestines.” Julia told him.

He turned to Ramsey. “What about the anesthesia, you know my body doesn’t handle it well.”

“Don’t I always have you covered?” Ramsey smiled.

“Your kidney function is decreasing, Tate, and the only option is to operate before you go into multi-system organ failure.”

“So I die if I don’t go through with the surgery, and I might die if I actually agree to it?” Julia and Ramsey confirmed as much without saying anything, and Tate just nodded, gently grabbing Ramsey’s hand. “It’s been lovely knowing you, Helena.”

“It’s going to stay lovely, Tate. You’re fighting and we’re going to do the same.” 

x

“Are you seriously out of your mind?”

Lydia ignored the musings of Isaac Lahey as he sat down in her wheelchair as they resided in the tunnels. She knew he was referring to her still being absent from her room, but she didn’t care. She still had Leera’s chart, shifting on the hospital bed that had been left in the tunnel as she tried to find a reason for Leera’s palpitations.

“Go away, Lahey. I’m working.”

“You’re supposed to be resting.” Isaac sighed. “You have a better patient than me and you’re not even cleared to assess patients. Scott has the gunshot wound, Stiles is on the CF case with Ramsey. Allison has the arrhythmias and I’m running around the hospital, scheduling fake surgeries for a fake patient. I’m a surgeon,” He was scoffing as he spoke, annoyance evident within every syllable he spoke. “I shouldn’t be carting Asher Stilinski around like he’s Chief of Surgery when our actual Chief of Surgery is riding my ass to stay assigned to the fake surgeries of a doctor that can’t operate anymore.”

It struck Lydia like lightning, a spark tingling every cell in her body to the point of massive realization. “Oh my God. Faking it.”

“It’s real to him, Lydia, he has Alzheimer's.”

“No, Peter’s patient. Leera. She’s faking it!” She leapt off the bed, wincing at the slight pain she felt when she did so. She tucked the chart under her arm and kissed the top of Isaac’s head as she stood. “Thank you!”

She leapt her way to the nurse’s station, where she saw Allison searching around where they kept the charts. Her eyes found Lydia, throwing out an arm once she spotted the chart in her possession.

“I’ve been looking for that!

“What’s her results?”

Allison went over the chart as she sighed. “Her tilt test was negative, the echo showed mild mitral stenosis. Peter is ordering EP studies.”

“I know what’s wrong with her and you won’t have to do anymore tests on her.”

“Oh, and you know this by harboring her chart all day?”

Lydia leaned on the counter for support, as she was beginning to feel a little bit more pain that she had since last night during her fever. “I think she’s doing this to herself, Allison.”

“She’d be an idiot to be causing herself to have ventricular arrhythmias.”

“Yeah, but it would mean she has Munchausen’s.”

Allison’s brow furrowed. “You think she’s taking something to produce real symptoms? Seriously?”

Peter showed up behind them, though Lydia hadn’t seen him yet as she made his way over to them.

“Listen, just run it by Peter.”

“Run it by him yourself, he’s behind you.”

She looked up at him, and he looked down to her, but they said nothing. Allison wasn’t sure she should be witnessing the look between the two of them, but they just stood there until Allison gave Peter the chart and Lydia just sighed to herself while Allison walked away, leaving the former lovers to their battle of silence.

But Lydia was right, and she wasn’t going to let her drama with Peter get in the way of the patient’s care. So she told him exactly why the patient was doing this to herself, that her parents were off helping other people while she used the hospitals she was admitted to as her de facto family.

“It’s not enough.” Peter said at the end of it all.

“She lied about her job too. She’s a pharmacy tech, not a PhD.”

“I’ve been lied to before, doesn’t seem to hard.”

Lydia sighed. “This isn’t about us.”

“Maybe we should make it about us.”

“I didn’t lie!”

“You withheld the truth, I consider that lying, Lydia!”

“Okay, stop.” Lydia barked. “You broke things off, okay, not me, and you were fine to do it! This is not a relationship, this isn’t something for you to have an opinion about!”

“Lydia!”

“So why are you walking around like you’re all hurt or whatever? It’s stupid and you have no right to be because everything that’s happened has been your doing so, you know, own up to it.”

“Lydia-”

“I’ve got to go.” She grabbed the door, but spun around to say, “I’m supposed to be in bed.”

Peter yelled her name one more time as the door swung open and close, his anger getting the best of him as he shoved some papers off the desk of the private room they had been in, wondering if things between them would ever resolve to normal.

x

“This guy is crazy. Letting his wife shoot him.” Scott shook his head as he stood in the OR with Derek, performing the removal of the bullet that was lodged in their patient’s brain.

“Dr. McCall, hold back on that retractor please.” Derek nodded, looking at another intern in the OR with them. “Suction, please.”

“I mean, covering for his wife after she shot him? He needs spine, not the removal of a bullet.”

“He cheated on her, McCall.” Derek said. “I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying.”

“Guilt’s worth a bullet in his brain?”

“Relationships are fragile, and they’re nothing if you’re not willing to sacrifice.” Of course, Derek knew this all too well. On a painfully clear level of clarity.

“Not that kind of sacrifice.”

“Sometimes, the bullet is worth it, worth what you’re fighting for.”

After the surgery, Derek and Scott made there way back to him in his room where their patient was recovering from the surgery.

“Do you know what my wife told the police?”

“That you cheated on her.” Derek sighed. “That she was drunk and you were cleaning your guns in the kitchen.”

“I’m not going to charge her with anything.” The patient said defiantly.

“She confessed, Roger.” Scott said. “You should be grateful, she shot you!”

“I’m stupid, Dr. McCall, that’s all I wam. Nothing will make you feel more idiotic than cheating on the woman that you’ve loved, that you will continue to love. Makes you see what you’re missing.”

Derek thought about this. About Julia, about Stiles. About everything. Sacrifice. It meant something to him, and he had no idea what it was going to mean for him when he looked back on the divorce papers.

x

“My urine was blue?”

Explaining to Leera what has transpired during the EP studies, Peter and Allison were trying to break the news to her easily, which was proving to be difficult if Leera decided to fight the truth of her condition.

“We did another screening for drugs, Leera, one that tested positive for amitriptyline, which I’m sure you already know by now, causes ventricular arrhythmias.” Peter stated.

Allison chimed in in true intern fashion, but it was a move that Peter wasn’t minding because their patient needed to hear it. “I’m guessing you knew it wouldn’t show up on a regular drug screen, but not that it would cause your urine to change color.”

“No, but..no! I didn’t cause this to happen.” Leera pleaded. “I really am sick!”

“You’re lying to yourself.” Peter said without hesitation or fear for her feelings. “You’re seeing only what you want to see, Leera. You’re wasting our resources, our time and you're wasting your life. All of this is in your head. You’re going to Psych.”

The devastation on Leera’s face was easily visible as Allison followed Peter out of the room, heading down the hall to give Lydia the good news: That she was right as usual.

Still donning her silk gown, Lydia was pacing the floor, almost like she was awaiting Allison to strut into her room and give her the final diagnosis of the patient she had been side-attending to in her spare time as a patient herself.

“Lydia, please lie down.” Her mother begged.

“I don’t need to, mother.” She rolled her eyes as Allison came in, her face brightening upon her intrusion.

“You were right.” Allison breathed easily.

“What happened?”

“Leera one hundred percent suffers from Munchausen’s.”

“See, that?” Lydia spun on her heels to face the feeble minded Natalie Martin. “I was right.” She locked eyes with Allison again, seeing it written all over her friends face. She had fought so hard to keep everything in and redirect it to Leera. Everything with Peter and the baby and the deterioration of their relationship that it came all rushing up for her to the point of catastrophic explosion. “I was right.” Tears lines her eyes. “Oh, I was right.” She started to full on sob then, Allison exchanging a look with her mother as she cried so hard. “I was right, I was so right, I was…”

x

Tate Gerome was coding. It was a nightmare for Dr. Ramsey. She cared so much for him and his family and him coding was not supposed to happen. Julia wasn’t doing anything. Stiles wasn’t doing anything. No one was doing anything to help him, so it was up to her to perform CPR to try and save his life.

“Dr. Ramsey.” Julia pleaded. “Dr. Ramsey, he’s DNR.”

“Fight this!” Ramsey said to Tate on the table. “Fight to live, damn you.”

“Do not resuscitate, Dr. Ramsey.” Julia said. “Stilinski, get Dr. Ramsey away from the patient.”

“No!” Ramsey bellowed, missing the side-eye glance that Stiles and Julia shared, knowing that he was already gone. “There wasn’t any bleeders, he was fine! No, this doesn’t happen, he doesn’t get to die!”

“Ramsey, there was just too much damage, too much for his body to handle. It’s already happened. You have to let him go.” Julia’s words shocked Ramsey enough to stop the CPR When she did, the monitor registered that there was no heartbeat. Her patient, Tate Gerome, was gone. “It’s your call, Dr. Ramsey.”

Tears, things that Dr. Helena Ramsey never let fall from her face, did just that as she walked away from the table and started to rip off her gown and mask, obliterated by this personal loss. “Time of death, 19:26.”

Ramsey was gone by the time Stiles was in the scrub room, scrubbing from the surgery as Julia joined him. They both knew how close she had been to Tate, and they were allowing her the time to talk to the family herself and deal with such a tragic and heavy loss.

“That was rough to witness.” Julia said, but Stiles didn’t say anything. He just looked over and saw Julia running her thumb over her wedding ring. “Listen, Stiles, I’m not going to force someone to stay with me if they don’t want to. But if there’s a chance, even the smallest chance, that Derek does, I’m not leaving Seattle anytime soon.”

Stiles froze in place, Julia stomping out of the room in her runway walk as he pondered the idea of Julia sticking around Seattle Grace. There wasn’t room for both of them in Derek’s life, that much he knew presented as fact. What would happen if Julia Blake stayed in Seattle?

x

“McCall, hang back for a sec.”

Scott was on his way out the door, going to go change for his date with Allison, when the Chief had caught him in between the hall and the locker room.

“What’s up, Chief?”

“You took the clinical skills section of your medical board exams after most interns, so the results are only now coming out. I got a call from USMLE this morning.”

“Oh...does that mean I failed…”

“McCall, you're still an MD. You still get to practice medicine. The hospital grants you 4 months to retake the exam. You study it, you pass it, you put it behind you. One misstep doesn't affect your career.”

“And if I fail? I mean, if I take the test again, sir, and I fail it again.”

“You’ll be fired from practicing medicine at Seattle Grace and unable to continue in the program.” Deaton shook his head. “There is no failing again.”

The Chief walked away, a swarm of thoughts embedding themselves in Scott’s head. He was just supposed to take Allison to dinner, and now this was happening. He wanted to take her out and enjoy himself, but that was going to be hard to do when his life here at Seattle Grace was hanging by a thread.

x

Stiles got the page to Lydia’s room from Allison, and he ran. He ran because any number of things could have happened to her. Only when he got there, she wasn’t in need of surgery or coding in her bed. She was sobbing uncontrollably, to the point where Stiles was worried she was going to pass out. Isaac and Allison were standing far in front of her bed, fearing to touch her while Lydia’s mother looked on in worry from the couch in the room, standing slowly upon his entrance.

“What happened?”

“I can’t!” Lydia screamed through the boughs of sobs. “I can’t stop, can’t stop.”

“Crying.” Allison added.

“What did you guys do!?”

“Nothing!” They answered together.

Stiles went to comfort Lydia, to hug it out even though they weren’t huggers but Isaac grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back towards them and away from Lydia as the thought of someone touching her increased the decibels of her cries.

“We tried that.” Isaac said.

“It only made it worse…” Allison said, concern laced in her language.

Natalie Martin sighed. “I knew it. I knew it was only a matter of time before she broke down.”

A scream came out of Lydia’s mouth as she looked at Stiles, pointing a finger over at her mother as the deepest voice they’d ever heard from her emitted from her small mouth. “I will kill her!”

Jumping to action, Stiles ran over to Natalie and started to guide her out of the room.

“But I’m her mother!”

“Yeah, we don’t do well with parents around here so just go and come back later.” Stiles told her, almost pushing her out of the room and shutting the door once she was clear of the exit.

“Stiles, please, please stop, make it stop.” Lydia cried again. “Somebody sedate me!” She yell-cried some more as her friends did what they were told, the emotions of her pregnancy and of Peter swirling in her mind.

It was only about an hour later when Peter showed up. Lydia had been weaned onto sedatives to keep her calm, forgotten tears still staining her face while her mother knitted in silence on the couch. When he entered the room, a wave of crying began, but it subsided when the look of guilt and sorrow fell on his face.

“Lydia.”

Her mother looked up then, seeing him and shaking her head, telling him that she wasn’t in any condition to have company after what had happened with her friends, but he wasn’t going anywhere. Lydia could tell by the look in his light eyes. He was dressed to leave the hospital, but he put his things in a nearby chair and approached her bed.

“She can’t handle being touched.” Natalie warned, but she saw that Peter wasn’t going to listen.

Lydia just stared up at him, sobs subsiding as he climbed into bed with her. Peter wrapped his arms around her as he settled into the bed, smoothing out her red hair as she lightly let a few cries spill from her mouth, holding onto him as she gripped at his chest.

“Shh,” he cooed, running his hands through her long, unkept hair. “I’m here.”

She cried a little more, Peter kissing the top of her head as she writhed against him, seemingly needing to be as close to him as possible, Natalie just looking like Lydia had found someone who could finally silence the hyper talkative nature of her daughter.

x

Having left Lydia to sleep, Stiles made his way back to the Yellow Brick Bar. Only this time, he wasn’t there with his friends. Derek had found him as he was leaving the hospital, and had asked to join him across the street for a drink. The action caused pride to course throughout Stiles’ entire body, because he hoped they were going to be talking about them again, about becoming a them again. Maybe Derek would even show him the signed divorce papers as a beginning to their lives becoming more aligned with each other, going back to being the them that Stiles had been wanting back for some time now.

He set down his coat over one of the high tables as Derek set down his briefcase. Taking their seats, Stiles smiled over at Derek.

“I’m so glad you decided to meet me.”

“Me too.” Derek grinned back, turning his head to the side so that it cracked pleasantly. “You want a drink?”

“A drink is something I definitely need.” Stiles laughed.

When Derek got up, it knocked over his things, causing them to litter the floor of the bar in a way that made them both laugh a little. Stiles bent down to help him gather his things, and when he did, he noticed that one of the things he was picking up was the divorce papers. He flipped them over in interest, a look of unreadable emotion crossing over Derek's face as he watched Stiles read them.

They weren’t signed.

He put the papers down on the table and looked into Derek’s dreamy eyes. Derek let out a great sigh, knowing that the fact that the papers remained unsigned was going to cause a great deal of questioning for Stiles. All Stiles could do was stare at the man, wondering if Julia’s earlier rambling had been true, and he was thinking about fighting for his ruin of a marriage, and Stiles just felt the air leave his lungs as they stood in the bar, not knowing what their next move would be.


	5. This Is Hard For Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A power outage puts multiple patients at risk. Isaac and Scott are stuck doing surgery in an elevator, Stiles works on a patient putting her health at risk for spiritual reasons, Lydia tends to a guy in chronic pain and using porn to alleviate his condition, and Stiles succumbs to his feelings for Derek, leaving the charming attending with a decision to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, thank you to anyone and everyone who has praised this story. It's been wonderful seeing the comments and kudos and the overall general support of this work. I sincerely apologize for the lack of material added to this, as I've been going through a lot recently, working two jobs, and finally putting the finishing touches on my debut novel. So to those of you who read this latest chapter and have stuck with it since the beginning, thank you SO MUCH for keeping up with this. I definitely want to keep this up and I've really needed to make this chapter happen recently. Anyway, thanks again for reading and feel free to give feedback if you wish. Thanks again!

Walking back home from her date with Scott, Allison was not happy. Feeling elated was such a foreign feeling for the hot brunette, especially as she was clad in a hot little pink number that she was sure would do wonders for Scott's ability to look away from her. But the entire night, nothing. He was off. He was gone. There was something he was either unwilling to talk about or he was just being an ass to her on purpose throughout the entire event of their date. And she had had enough of it as they approached the house she shared with Isaac and Stiles.

"Thanks, Scott. It was great. Great time." Her voice was dark and chilly, a random Saturday in Autumn was her voice, but she couldn't find the time to give a shit after the way the entire evening had played out. "Really, it was the perfect date. Best night ever. Super romantic."

"Allison..."

"My favorite part was probably when you ignored me all night." She scoffed sarcastically. "That was the true MVP of the evening."

"No matter what you think, I enjoyed spending time with you."

She hadn't expected such an admission from the cute man before her. Honestly, she had expected him to go running off after he had gotten her home instead of actually conversing with her on the doorstep at the house. It was only a few hours after he had even proposed the date, so she was so taken aback by his behavior at dinner, and then again now by his rebuttal of said behavior.

"You did."

"I did."

He moved closer to her, like he was going to kiss her goodnight, which was truly the only way that their date would be in any way salvageable. But when she opened up her eyes after waiting for his lips to meet hers, she just saw a scared man in front of her, someone who was definitely not going to kiss her. She had no idea that storm clouds of self-annihilation were brewing in his already shaky mind, but there was no way he was going to tell her that. So he just stood there, looking afraid and mumbled up an excuse.

"I gotta run."

And run he did. He was gone before the beginnings of a protest hit her tongue. She rolled her eyes and shouted after him, "Seriously? Seriously!?", and then she retreated to the safety of her home, slamming the front door with enough vigor that it shook Isaac awake in his room. He was just about to roll over and head back to sleep when Allison came stomping in, throwing on his light and door and lifting her hand in a disbelieving gesture and said once more, "Seriously?"

Isaac just stared at her, unable to understand what was happening since he was still half-asleep as she moved her way across the room. Allison writhed out of her little light half-jacket and stood by the other side of his bed.

"I'm getting in."

"Allison, I'm trying to sleep."

"Shut up."

With a heavy sigh, he threw back the covers for her to get in, hoping that they could get some sleep before something else happened to their collective night.

That's when something did. Outside the house once more, Stiles was sauntering back to his house, wishing that Derek would have stayed at the bar and left him alone. He had just found the unsigned divorce papers about an hour before, and Stiles was done. Derek had clearly made some sort of choice by not setting a pen to the papers, and that was that. But for some reason, he was trying to get Stiles to understand something that Stiles had no intention of trying to understand.

"Derek, I don't want to talk anymore about this. Go home."

"Stiles..."

"I get it. It's Julia. You didn't sign the papers. Choice made. That's it."

His key turning, Stiles made his way inside the house, and Derek squeezed in after him, leaving the door hanging open in the balance of decision, much like Stiles and Derek were at the current moment of fruition.

"Stiles."

"What!?"

"Oh." Derek stood there in the doorway, staring down at Stiles with a squirm of a line on his face in unfortunate circumstance. His features were set to stunned, and Stiles was waiting like an idiot for an appropriate response. "I, uh, hadn't really planned anything to follow that up with. Usually I just say your name and then you yell at me."

"Are you fucking serious?" With the jacket he had just taken off, he started hitting Derek with it, who was recoiling in a severe degree and trying to ask Stiles to stop hitting him.

"Stiles, stop!"

"Seriously? _Seriously!?_ "

Next thing Isaac knew, his bedroom door was being opened again, this time Stiles replacing the earlier form of Allison. "I mean, seriously."

Another grievance on his face, Isaac threw open his comforter so that Stiles could worm his way into the bed with him and Allison, who hadn't fallen asleep and had taken to staring silently and intensely at the ceiling, seemingly waiting for someone as pissed off as her. And with Stiles there, the talking at each other rather than with each other began, hindering Isaac's sleep once more.

"He's a fucking brain surgeon." Stiles growled, also staring at the ceiling.

"I'm hot!" Allison said, clearly only worried about talking about herself, same as Stiles. "My legs are shaved. I even got a Brazilian, just in case!"

"How is he a neurosurgeon and still manage to be so brainless!?" Stiles yelled.

Isaac sighed heavily, as Allison roared, "Seriously!"

"Seriously." Stiles agreed.

Lending both hands, Isaac patted his friends on the shoulders closest to him. "Sleep. Sleep makes everything better."

The lights went out, the power succumbing to the storm brewing above them, a sigh spurring from Isaac's lips as he thrashed against his tiny mattress to try and sleep with his two best friends sleeping next to him as their woes of the romantic nature whirled around their heads, threatening to overtake their very souls.

x

Still dripping from the downpour occurring outside the hospital, Lydia was wringing out her tossed red ponytail as she stood next to Dr. Ramsey putting on her white lab coat. The resident was eyeing her intently through the action of setting her coat on her slender frame, sharp daggers of a stare burrowing holes into the young intern's temples. Catching her gaze, Lydia put on her sternest face and turned toward her resident.

“I'm fine. Literally finer than fine. I just want it to be known far and wide that Lydia Martin, MD, is here and ready to get back to work, okay? I'm fine."

Ramsey seemingly had a response already whipped up, but Julia came sauntering into the room, looking straight at the resident. "Have you seen Dr. Hale?" Then when she realized that there were actually two Dr. Hales, she clarified with, "Derek."

"He's here somewhere." Ramsey nodded. "His initials are on the OR board."

"Thanks."

Lydia saw the confident way Julia strutted out of their view. Crap. She'd forgotten to ask Stiles how it went with Derek and signing the papers. What would happen to her newly proclaimed bestie if Derek had decided not to sign the papers?

"Have you seen Sti-, I mean, is Dr. Stilinski in yet?"

"No one's seen him yet. If he doesn't hurry, he'll be late." Ramsey smiled. "And everyone knows I _love_ late."

Ramsey rounded up the rest of her interns, telling them they had a couple minutes but to meet her in a designated patient's room in precisely two minutes when Stiles came running into the locker room, whizzing past Lydia without so much as a hello.

"So?"

"So, what?"

Stiles threw off his clothes and changed into his intern scrubs, Lydia still in awe at how quickly he could change. No wonder him and Derek always made such great time when they were together doing the things they did.

"The papers. I'm sorry I didn't check in and everything, I was still trying to issue my mother away."

"It's fine, Lydia. I understand." He whipped on his lab coat and headed for the door. "Ramsey said two minutes, right? What room did she say?"

Leading the way, they made their saunter down the hallway, seeing their friends at the end of the hall as they turned a corner.

"Stiles, what happened with Derek? Last thing you told me was you two were meeting at Joel's and I haven't heard anything since then."

"Are you two interested in being doctors today? Let's move!"

Ramsey, ever the peacekeeper, kept Stiles from having to answer as they filed into their first patient's room, a middle-aged man by the name of Araec Green, who looked like he was in the worst pain of his life as he lied in his hospital bed. His wife, Alicia, was knitting, minding her own business as they entered. Ramsey handed Lydia the chart and asked her to present the case to everyone.

"Alright. Eric Green, forty-two. He's scheduled with Dr. Hale of Neuro for a spinal implant-" Lydia was cut off then, by Eric reaching over to the bedside table to turn up the volume on the TV he had been watching since their entry. In seconds, both Scott and Isaac attuned their statures toward the television once they saw what the viewing pleasure, and it was quite the pleasure, on what the screen was portraying exactly. Lydia wasn't looking, and neither were Allison and Stiles, since they were watching Mr. Green go from insufferable pain to slightly uncomfortable, but better than his previous standing. "-to control the pain from his herniated disc. He's allergic to all pain meds so..."

That's when the rest of the interns saw the action on the glass of the screen. Moans of ecstasy emanated from its surface to their ears and positions they had never dreamed of were in full reenactment for their eyes only.

Lydia prompted the patient with, "Is that what I...?"

"Oh, yeah. It's porn." His wife said, ever the sound of nonchalant speaking.

"Porn?" Ramsey said, then when she saw the TV, she exclaimed, "Wait, _porn!?"_

"Hell, what is it we're watching?" Scott said, subtly covering his body with his lab coat.

"McCall, out!" He stormed away obediently while the others just stared in horror. "I'm sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Green, I'm sure you are lovely people and whatever you do in private is between you and your consent but this is a hospital, now. We can't have porn!"

"It helps my pain!" Eric pleaded. "I swear. My doctor said watching it releases endorphins in my brain that help manage my pain."

"I am totally getting that." Isaac nodded.

"In. The. _Hall!_ "

Ramsey screamed at him, the girls chuckling while Stiles smiled and looked to Alicia and asked, "What even is this?"

"Damsel Doctors...4, I think?"

Suddenly, the action on the TV was too much for the interns, because the positions they were doing were so whimsical and crazy, that they all tilted their heads as they onlooked with provided horror.

"There's no way that's the slightest bit comfortable." Lydia shuddered.

"It's not, trust me." Stiles added.

With gleeful grins, Lydia and Allison smiled as they pictured Stiles and the good Dr. Hale performing such an act. Ramsey was horrified though, snapping her fingers at them and ushering them out of the patient's room before anything of substance could have been said in front of their wildly interesting new patient.

It wasn’t long before Ramsey was wrangling her interns back into shape like the obedient cattle that they were, and she wasn’t one to waste time with giving out assignments.

“Lahey, McCall, both of you will be taking care of the pit today, no complaints, thank you. Argent, there’s a patient that looks to be of cardiac dwellings waiting for you, and Lydia, please keep an eye on the Greens. The last thing I need is for word getting out that there’s a free-for-all pornography showing on the surgical floor. Go.” They all scurried away, all except for the as of yet unassigned Stiles, who looked at her cumbersomely. “Stilinski, this evening your father is being properly discharged. Do you need more time to get him situated or have you gotten everything figured out?” There was a softness to her voice that until now Stiles wasn’t sure Ramsey even possessed, coloring him pleasantly surprised.

“Uh, no, everything’s good or whatever. The people from the nursing home are coming at eight.”

“Alright, good, glad to hear it. Since that’s out of the way, I guess all there is, is that you’re going to be with Hale today. Derek Hale.” Ramsey, letting go of her prior pleasantness, was quick to relish in the ashen glaze Stiles currently wore over his usually handsome features. “Hey, he asked for you. Embrace the struggle, Stilinski. Embrace the struggle.” She laughed to herself for about a millisecond. “Take it up with him if you find the challenge to be too much.”

Ramsey strode away with unshakeable glee, leaving Stiles to dwell on the face the idea that he was going to be stuck with Derek all day, and the constant reminder that he was just second choice in the game of love.

x

Covering the ER, Scott and Isaac were sort of jonesing for something to come crashing through the doors. Something bloody, something seedy. Really, just something. They were interns, cutters. They wanted to splice flesh, but it was looking to be somewhat of a tame day, and things weren’t really looking to speed up at the moment.

“Really?” Scott rolled his eyes. “The pit is always busy. The one damn day that Ramsey personally assigns me to the ER, it’s calm.”

“Gives you more time to dwell on the fact that you were an idiot for screwing up last night with Allison.”

Scott’s head hovered toward Isaac in an instant. “What did you just say?”

It was then that the huge turnaround in stillness altered in the pit, a gurney carrying a bleeding patient coming their way. Both were eager on their heels, sauntering over and awaiting to hear what sort of case they had on their hands.

"Zeke Aglionby, twenty five year old male with a severe gunshot wound, left chest cavity. Immediate return of 860 cc's of blood from the chest."

"OW!" Zeke screamed like nails were scraping the insides of his chest, which both Isaac and Scott were quick to accept, because it wasn't like they had ever been shot in the chest to badger his claim.

The attendant wheeling Zeke into the next available ER room broke up Zeke's continued cries of agitated anguish. "In the past hour, he's put out more than 200 cc's."

Immediately jumping into doctoral action, Isaac ordered, "Alright, someone push morphine. Two milligrams."

"No, five milligrams" He countered, eyeing Isaac in a slithering motion with his dark orbs. "You get that this is my case, right?" Scott smirked in the simplest way that raked steel into Isaac's eyes.

"Oh, keep dreaming. The only case you should be worried about is whether or not Allison is going to give you another chance."

"Whoa, out of line!"

"Out of line _my ass_ , she kept me up all night, in my bed!"

"Doctors, enough!" The attendant declared with a heavy fisted outcry, one that shut them up instantly upon looking at him. "Do you get that you have an entire police force watching you right now and you're fighting over an officer instead of accurately helping him?"

Indeed, just outside of the ER room was a squad of cops, watching closely to make sure that they didn't fuck up their fallen brother.

"They don't bite so much as stare you down with Lucifer-level intent." Zeke laughed weakly, which ultimately started a vicious coughing fit that sent his vitals in a swirl of indecisiveness.

"Just page Hale, let him know I'm bringing up a GSW." Isaac spun around, trying to catch his bearings on what to administer Zeke next.

"I think you mean 'we'."

"What?"

" _We_ are bringing up a GSW." Scott solidified, much to the annoyance of the other boyish doctor in the room.

Isaac sent a silent prayer to the ether, begging and pleading that something would just go his way today, and that he could survive working with Scott on this vitally important case.

x

            Alan Deaton sauntered into Asher's room a little while later, secretly glad to have the older Stilinski out of his hospital. It wasn’t that he hated Asher, because their years of friendship was one of his favorite things on this earth. No, it was because it caused him a little too much pain. And a little too much serrated guilt.

            He leaned against the doorframe as his eyes found his old friends’. “You’re leaving today, Asher. You’ll be able to leave this place behind you.”

            “No, no, no.” Asher said, vehemently shaking his head like a crane that had long sense lost its self-control. “I told you, Alan, I have loads more patients to see today.”

            “No more patients, Asher.” Deaton nodded. “No more hospital. I’ll stop by later to make sure your leave is overseen by a friendly face.” He finished off with a smile, but even he had to admit it came off a little too happy for his professional liking.

            It wasn’t until he was ambling out of the room, all thoughts of Asher Stilinski fading from the forefront of his conscience, that the former doctor let his voice ring loudly around the hospital room.

            “You should know that Claudia is thinking about leaving me.”

            Deer in the headlights, teenager caught during his first time, Alan was struck by the semi of a confession bursting forth from Asher’s lips. He turned around faster than a thunderstorm concluded a hot day.

            “Asher?”

            “I can’t do it without her, Alan.” The brims of his eyes were decorated with a prologue of tears. “I think she’s having an affair.”

            Alan sighed to himself which turned into him actually displaying the action in front of the patient. “Asher, all of this happened a long time ago. Claudia didn’t leave you. You’re remember things that happened over twenty years ago.”

            “It’ll be too late for me if she leaves me for this haughty bastard.” Asher seethed. “This is going to destroy Stiles.”

            “It didn’t.” Alan affirmed, knowing that this conversation was futile the more it clung to ears of the walls circling them. “There was no affair.” He gave Asher one last smile. “Try and get some rest before you’re discharged.”

            He left, feeling the exact feelings he had been fearing the entire time he had first approached Asher Stilinski’s room. And their Alzheimer-fueled exchange only proved to Deaton that he had to be very, very careful with exactly how he conducted himself around Stiles.

x

            Walking fast down the hall, Derek was worried at just how mad Stiles was going to get once he learned that he had requested the intern for the day. Sure, things were weird between them, especially after their battle of berating at Stiles’ house, but Derek needed more time. Time to explain, time to think. And it was just a lot easier to say that when Stiles had no choice but to stay put and not run away from him every time he opened his mouth to spew forth a clarification.

            And as he went to dive down a corner, Stiles was kicking his heels against the floor to meet him.

            “Stiles-”

            “Julia is looking for you, Dr. Hale.”

            “Jesus.” Derek could plainly see that his chance of explaining wasn’t exactly going to be easy. “Listen, Stiles, this is hard for me.”

            “Since I know how hard this is on _you_ , let me ease your worries a little bit.”

            All Derek could think was _here comes another long speech by the beautiful Stiles Stilinski._

 _Shit_ , he scorned himself. He definitely shouldn’t have been immediately drawn to thinking the word beautiful right now, when there was an impending fight breaking out between them.

“It’s not going to happen because of me. I’m not that guy, Derek. The guy who pleads for you to stay or annihilates a marriage. I watched my parents struggle with their own too much to willingly add gasoline on an already blazing wildfire. Don’t sign the papers, sign the papers, but it’s not going to be because of my influence. You’re the one, Derek, not me, that decides this.” He stopped blinking so he could truly get Derek to understand the next words out of his mouth. “Whatever you do end up deciding, I’m not your consolation prize. I’m withdrawing myself from the prize table, the winner’s circle, whatever you want to decree that it is, I’m gone.”

Derek stood there, dumbfounded by the words that he was currently soaking in, and Stiles, being the dark and twisty creature that he was, left no room for further thought. “Now, since we’re doctors, how about you usher me to this patient that we’re supposed to be assisting today?”

All too soon for Derek, they were in their patient’s room, a young woman named Sahna, who was admitted after complaining adamantly about a severe twine in her back that was proving to be persistent.

“My legs went numb last night,” Sahna explained. “Between that and my back this morning, something’s wrong, Dr. Hale.” Her face darkened as another wash of pain attempted to drown her. “It’s too much.”

Derek sympathized, because his heart was begging for air for the second time in his life. He did his best to avert any and all contact to Stiles at the moment while the thumping organ in his chest pleaded to be lifted out of the water of sorrow. “Ms. Liu, I’m going to be putting you on what’s called a PCA pump, a morphine administer that will hopefully ease your pain.”

“Please and thank you.” She winced, both of their turmoil bubbling over again.

“But what worries me is what I’m seeing on your MRI…”

“Please, God, no.” She cried. “What is it?”

“Myxopapillary ependymoma, I’m afraid. A spinal canal tumor. I know it sounds terrifying, but we can operate. If we perform surgery as soon as you’ll allow, you have a ninety-five percent chance of recovering without major complication. I would like to stress that waiting isn’t in your best interest with a tumor as aggressive as yours. Something as seemingly minor as a twenty-four wait and it puts you at a risk of permanent paralysis.”

“No.” Sahna cried. “I can’t have surgery.”

“Ms. Liu-”

“No, I…you don’t understand, how could you, you’re not Hmong. I…it’s too soon. I can’t.” Sahna started to cry, reaching for her phone. “My parents…no, no surgery.”

“Sahna, this surgery? You want it. Hell, you need it.” Stiles tried his best to remain professional, but she needed to grasp how serious her condition was to her well-being, to her life.

“I don’t-”

“Please…I’m sorry, Dr. Hale, but I need you to leave.” She looked at Stiles so suddenly, it caused him to rattle a little. “Both of you. Go!”

Once out of the room and climbing the stairs in the stairwell, Derek shot Stiles the oddest of glances in regards to what had just transpired in their patient’s room.

“Did she say Hmong? We’re going to need to know what she’s referring too before we can go any further with her care.”

“Should I keep processing her discharge or…?” Stiles said, overwhelmingly unsure.

“We have to, technically, because she’s declining out care. But we’re going to stay on top of this until we figure something out. It actually reminds me of this case back in Beacon Hills where-”

The end of their ascent imminent, Stiles rolled his eyes and cut off the neurosurgeon before he could get to a place that Stiles couldn’t as easily jump out of.

“Honestly, Derek, if there’s anything else regarding the current patient…otherwise…”

Now they were stopped, facing each other on the last landing of the stairs, both of them wordless. Derek laughed to himself, at how dismissive Stiles was being but also because his moment to explain had finally presented himself so he could shed some light, albeit in the darkest of ways.

“Okay, Stiles, I get it. I’m the villain in the plot twist to your story, but I need you to understand-”

“Understand what, Derek? That you haven’t signed the papers? Because I’m well aware of what you not pressing a pen to those documents really means-”

“It means I was married for eleven years!”

Now, it was Derek’s turn to cut him off, to deliver his own speech to Stiles in a newfound way that he had never been able to. The fire of the truth came barreling out of Derek like a Subway train with severed brakes, unable to see the possible doom ahead of him.

“Eleven years, Stiles. We’ve shared eleven holidays, exchanged in eleven birthday celebrations, eleven family functions. For eleven years, Julia has been my family, my constant. Do you expect for me, in one day’s time, to erase that long history, that long eleven years, on just a whim or the flick of my wrist? I think I deserve a little time here! A little hesitation on cutting out a person out of my life that has had my back when no one else did.” Derek struggled to refrain from crying, from tapping into the emotional hull he had built around himself and fortified for so long. Stiles was seeing his cracks, seeing through his vulnerable curtain, and he couldn’t reel any of it back to care. “She did something selfish, something awful, I haven’t forgotten. But I’ve earned a moment of painful uncertainty.” He flashed the most hurt and irate boil in his eyes when he stared into Stiles’ awaiting orbs. “And a speck of understanding from you, would be nice.”

He stormed off, leaving Stiles in the dust of his words, hoping that for once, Stiles knew what it felt like to be crushed by the words of someone else.

x

            At the edge of the mezzanine of the hospital, Lydia leaned against the railing, the lights above her flickering ominously, like someone was whacking the electric wiring throughout the establishment. Rolling her eyes at the nuisance, Lydia winced in pain just as Stiles joined her at the railing. She was still sore from everything that had happened.

            “You should take something, you know.” Stiles gestured to her side when her eyebrows met him with an arch. “Someone as studious as you should already know how long surgical scars take to fully heal. There’s no shame in needing to manage your pain.”

            “Pills are for quitters.” Lydia barked back, earning her a smirk from her friend.

            Just then, Allison stomped over to them, having a clear mindset when she blurted out, “I hate Scott.”

            “Because he didn’t make your happy place happy?” Lydia said concerned in a way that made it clear that she wasn’t.

            “Whatever. It’s just that I really hate Scott.”

            “I broke up with Derek.” Stiles mentioned with a slight stench to his tone.

            “Peter wants to be in a relationship.”

            Allison let her eyes somersault inside her head. “Boys are fucking stupid.”

            With that, she left and Stiles joined her as Lydia thought about how right that statement was, and how much she didn’t want to be distracted by anything but her career while her heart was strumming for something more.

x

            Luckily for Isaac and Scott, Zeke had somehow stabilized as soon as they had reached the elevator to take him in for surgery. Not that he still didn’t need immediate medical attention, but it definitely made their trip to the OR a little bit more level headed. As they rode on the elevator, Isaac could tell that Scott was itching to ask him something by the way he kept licking his lips. Apparently, Isaac wasn’t only getting really good at reading his friends, but also really good at being the person people wanted to unload all of their problems to.

            Which was a double-edged sword that he couldn’t quite carry.

            “Dude, just out with it already.” He sighed. “What is going on with you?”

            “Not me.” Scott finally exhaled, as if he had been waiting on Isaac to ask him. “It’s Allison. What’s going on with _her?_ ”

            “You blew it.” He said, not caring enough to hold back. After all, it was _his_ bed that Allison had sought refuge in last night. “She shaved her legs, she got a damn Brazilian. How are you this bad with women?”

            “Whoa, I am not bad with women.”

            “Oh, so you just forgot to kiss her goodnight then?”

            Zeke winced, catching both doctor’s attention as he looked at Scott with disdain. “That’s cold, man.”

            “Just… stay out of it, okay? I don’t need tips from you, Isaac.”

            “Seriously? Apparently, you do because I live with her, both Allison and Stiles. And whenever you and Derek or whoever messes up, I’m the one who has to pick up the pieces and shush them, telling them it’s all going to be alright and clean up their vomit from tequila binges so, no, I’m not going to stay out of it.”

            The elevator shuddered to a stop, so violent that it rocking all three of them like they were in a hammock rather than a fairly safe metal box, one that was quickly turning into a metal coffin as their panic set in.

            “We’re not moving.” Scott stated.

            Isaac scoffed loudly, and without the hum of the elevator to drown him out, it snared along the walls around them. “No kidding.” He started to frantically press the call button that they were supposed to call upon in case of emergency. But after about five minutes of cramping his hand with mashing and crashing the button in, it seemed like they were going to be stuck.

            “Give it a rest.” Scott demanded lightly. “If they haven’t gotten us out by now, there must be a problem with the power or something.”

            Zeke began to cry out, swelling with a hardcore bout of distress. After checking the monitor, Isaac’s cool exterior fell to the floor as fast as Zeke’s vitals. “We need to get him to an OR now. There’s more asbestosis.”

            “What’s that mean?” Zeke said in between hitched breaths.

            “It means we have to get out of here and soon.”

            Isaac looked at Scott at this statement, his heart clamoring against his rib cage as they were stuck in an elevator with a patient that could die within minutes if they didn’t operate.

x

            After leaving the mezzanine, Lydia made her way back to Mr. Green’s room. She seriously needed a distraction from her situation with Peter. And that’s exactly what she got. Eric was the only one in his room and he was writhing on the bed in what looked to be intense pain.

            “Are you alright, Mr. Green?”

            “Oh, thank God.” Eric wrestled with his pain a bit more in bed, practically scratching at his skin and begging it to peel beneath his fingernails. “Is there another room available? The TV went with the lights and everything is still out.”

            “That would be the power outage.” Lydia nodded. “It’ll be back on soon, hopefully. You’ll be just fine staying here.”

            Eric displayed an ostentatious show of agony. “What’s our plan?”

            “I’m sorry, what ‘plan’?”

“The plan that includes my porn!”

Lydia stifled a laugh, trying at least a little bit to hold some professional air about her, even if she did disagree that he really needed it. “I hear they have these things that are handheld and can actually teach you something. I believe they’re called books.”

“Hey, I need my porn!”

“Right.” Lydia mocked, leaving the room and hoping her patient would give up the porn gig.

x

“Redirect all ICU patients to the south wing!”

Ramsey wasn’t an insanely religious individual, but she was praying at multiple deities that the power to Seattle Grace Hospital was restored, and soon. Patient were getting restless, interns were getting lazy, and attendings were prescribing ludicrous decrees that really made her blood curdle.

That’s when Derek Hale decided to grace Ramsey with his a little too perfect presence. She’d paged him earlier in the day in regards to Eric Green and it seemed like now was going to be the time to discuss it.

“Porn, Derek? The man is in chronic pain and you go with porn?”

“Ah.” Derek smiled, giddy from the subject matter in juxtaposition to Ramsey’s seriousness. “You’ve met my lovely friend Eric.”

“Porn, Derek?”

“Do you have a problem with pornography, Dr. Ramsey?”

“ _PORN!?_ ”

“Listen, it’s been proven that it’s not only music or art that can minimize pain by stimulating the brain and producing endorphins.” He sneered. “Besides, I wasn’t the one to prescribe it. Find the real porn connoisseur.”

Begrudgingly, Ramsey walked away for greater destinations when Derek found himself a little surprised to see Stiles willingly coming within ten feet of him. Sure, they were on the same case together, but their last interaction didn’t exactly go swimmingly.

“Dr. Stilinski?”

“You need to talk to Sahna’s father. I have a feeling just having testicles isn’t good enough of a qualification. Apparently, you have to actually have years of experience doing this sort of thing so.”

“What happened to social services?”

“Well, I talked with Sahna, and just doesn’t think they can help us. She thinks nothing is going to help because her father believes that she can’t go through with surgery because she’s missing something.”

“Missing something? Like, her keys? What could possibly be important enough to need finding?”

“Her soul.”

Derek regarded Stiles with saucer-sized corneas. He had to admit that a little part of him was super pleased that he and Stiles could get along well enough to revel in medicine together, without making it awkward by bringing their personal troubles into it as well. It was just one of the many things that Derek loved about his connection to the budding doctor.

“Her soul?”

Stiles nodded vigorously. “We don’t need a social worker, Derek.” He gave the smallest inkling of a simper. “We need a shaman.”

x

            Back in the elevator, Isaac and Scott were still eagerly awaiting with Zeke for the power to enable them to get to a floor appropriately. And Zeke was getting too bad off. So bad off, that he must have thought that he could get off of the gurney, because he began to struggle out of his reclining state and aiming to place his feet on the floor.

“Zeke, you can’t—”

But he ignored Scott’s calls of obedience. “I don’t care what you say. I’m getting out of here.”

“We’re going to get out of here.” Isaac issued. “I promise.”

Thankfully, Peter appeared through the small opening onto the surgical floor that they had, letting them glimpse onto the floor of gawkers that managed to assemble for their spectacle of strife.

“What’s his blood pressure, Lahey?”

Isaac shook his head. “He’s too flustered.”

“Pulse?”

“Still there, if that’s what you mean.” Scott grunted.

“Were either of you smart enough to bring supplies?”

The interns swapped a look of inadequacy. Scott said, “Nothing more than gloves.”

“We thought we’d be in the OR.”

Peter sighed. “Enough excuses. Let’s hear the blood pressure, McCall.”

“Systolic over 50, just like the last three times you asked.”

Zeke began to wheeze and shake with vigor, setting all three’s worry at a new time high.

“Dr. Hale?”

“I suggest the two of you buckle up.” Peter shifted on the floor, so he could better peer into the descended elevator. “This isn’t going to be the best, but it’s happening.”

“What’s happening?” Isaac asked.

“You’re going to crack his chest open.”

Again, Scott and Isaac looked at each other like Peter Hale was absolutely ready to admit himself to the nearest institution over the mere idea of allowing two interns before a solo surgery by opening a chest for the first time ever.

X

            Lydia sauntered up to the nurse’s station, enjoying the look of annoyance swimming through the pores on Allison’s face. She definitely seemed upset about something, and if anyone was having a worse day than her, Lydia was all for it. Porn Guy was bumming her out.

            “What’s the matter, Sunshine?” Lydia laughed breezily.

            Allison rolled her eyes painfully. “Bite me.” She turned to the nearest nurse. “Could you do me a favor and grab me every record for Velma Barkley? And then just page me whenever you can, I’d really appreciate it.”

            The nurse began to compile Allison’s request as the young doctor got up to grab her snacks from the counter.

            “Wait, what’s going on with your patient?” Lydia wondered.

            “Mystery arrhythmias. I’m trying to pinpoint exactly what’s happened in her life to cause these things.” She ripped open the wrapper on her brownie and took a bite, walking out from behind the nurse’s station and heading away from them at the same time that Stiles started to walk over. “Plus, I don’t have time to exactly research it with this much going on.”

            Stiles smiled at them as he approached. Allison stuck out her hand and forked over the bag of pretzels she was saving and awarded them to Stiles. He greedily took them, thanked Allison for her services, and went walking right by the nurse’s station.

            “Wait, what aren’t you guys telling me?” Lydia pouted.

            Allison walked backward as she sneered with supreme joy. “Peter is about to talk Scott and Isaac through heart surgery in the elevator.”

            Stiles did the same action, and added a smirk to dagger at Lydia. “Derek booked a shaman healing ritual.”

            “Hell yeah!” Allison hooted.

            Both of her friends made themselves scarce as their days dwindled into a wonderful display of medicine, and Lydia’s was full of moans and facial expression of ecstasy.

            “But all I have is Porn Guy!”

            A little while later, Lydia decided to check in on her porn patient. The power was still ceasing to course through the walls of the hospital, and she had a feeling that Eric was still struggling to take it.

            She made her way into her patient’s room and Eric was, as predicted, inconsolable over his capsizing pain. He was crying out, yelping like a wounded animal. Concernced, Lydia reached for his chart and read his newly provided vitals.

            “Oh, your pressure’s elevated…pulse is racing…oh my God, you’re in actual pain!”

            Eric, among his painful excursions, still spared a moment to roll his eyes at his doctor. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!”

            “The porn…it really is sedating your pain?” Eric just looked at her like she’d been missing the entire point, which in all actuality, she had. “I’m sorry, I—”

            “You honestly think I enjoy watching hardcore porn in front of my doctors?”

            “Do you want my honest answer or…?”

            “Hey!”

            “Alright, alright.” Lydia didn’t want her patient in pain. Despite her demeanor, she really didn’t want anyone to suffer, especially under her watch. So, she really did have to come up with a plan for Eric. Something that wouldn’t let his pain linger and sting him with fire ant bites. Eric was allergic to most narcotics and NSAIDS. She remembered reading in his history that both droperidol and dihydroemetine caused him to fall into a coma last year. She could get an anesthesiologist, but Eric had surgery tomorrow and there was no chance that the anesthesiologist was going to administer an epidural block.

            “What am I supposed to do? I’m hurting!”

            “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”

            Unfortunately, an idea implanted itself into her brain, and she wasn’t going to enjoy it a bit. Eric must have accurately read her face because he rested into his bed and waited for her plan to unfold to his benefit.

            “Listen to me, if you tell _anyone_ about this, I will sell your favorite body parts on the black market and then use the money to eradicate the remainder of your family line. Got it?”

            “I promise!”

            Eric leaned back into the mattress and closed his eyes as Lydia took a seat on the available chair next to him, and began to verbally spew the sordid tales that kept Eric’s pain at bay.

            “So…there’s women. Uh, three women. Three doctors. You like doctor’s, right? That’s what you were watching when—”

            “I get the picture.” Eric said, waiting for her to hurry up and get these so called “details” out of the way.

            “Right, back to the doctors.” She laughed nervously. “Okay, so there’s three doctors and all of them are very…saucy. Three very saucy, naughty, sexy doctors awaiting very bad, bad patients to attend to. Oh, and they’re in a shower, all three of them.”

            Eric released a sigh, finally having some of his pain relieved in a way he hadn’t felt since the power had cut off his only remedy. Lydia saw his expression soften and knew that she was doing the right thing, no matter how it looked or made her feel.

x

            Back in the elevator, Scott was pissed. He was pissed because he was afraid. And he was afraid because he had other things on his mind. And during that time, he froze. Completely froze when Peter asked him to step up take charge of cracking Zeke’s chest open. And that’s how Scott had allowed Isaac to cut open a chest completely by himself and left Scott to take to ventilating.

            Peter was guiding Isaac through every maneuver, everything he needed to get through the procedure without endangering his career or endangering the life of their very critical patient and his overall well-being.

            “Alright, Lahey, talk to me.” Peter reiterated, laying down on the floor just as he had before as he considered the small opening between the floors. Isaac was a master with a scalpel, doing everything with expert precision. But it was important to know absolutely everything he was doing so that Peter insured the safety of Zeke once they finally got into the OR.

            “Dr. Hale, I didn’t cut the lungs or the heart.” Isaac beamed up at his mentor with wide eyes and a masked smile. “The lungs and the heart is okay!”

            Peter smiled minimally. “That’s great, Lahey. You’re doing great.” He made sure to send an annoyed glance at Scott, one the latter didn’t take too well. “Now just do the pericardiotomy and be sure to insure that there’s no lasting injuries.”

            Still harnessing every muster of attention on Zeke and his continued good health, Isaac mentioned to Peter, “Dr. Hale, I’m going to need satinsky clamps, lap pads, metzenbaums, and forceps.”

            Smiling down at his young intern, Peter just nodded. “You absolutely will.”

            After acquiring the correct items, Isaac not only did the pericardiotomy, but also extracted a clot from Zeke’s chest with minimal effort. The last problem was that there was a hole in his aorta, and Isaac told Peter that the only way it didn’t act like it would rupture was if he plugged it with his finger. Peter advised against it, but there was no denying the vitals change that Zeke portrayed.

            “BP is stabilizing.” Scott muttered.

            “That’s good!” Isaac said as he looked back up to Peter for more direction. “Okay, Dr. Hale, what’s next?”

            “You wait.” He smiled back, looking to see that the fire and rescue team had finally arrived to get Scott, Zeke, and Isaac from the locked elevator. “They’re ready to pull you guys out of there, so you grab the satinsky clamp to hold him over until we get in the OR.”

            “Right.” Isaac nodded.

            “And Lahey?”

            “Yeah?”

            “Congratulations. You just flew solo.”

            Laughing victoriously, Isaac nodded once more and avoided Scott’s damning gaze. “Thank you, Dr. Hale."

x

“’That’s it!’” Lydia yelped in ecstasy, still describing sordid scenes for her patient with the chronic pain problem. “’I’m so good and being bad!’, Erica said as she misplaced her stethoscope.” It, of course, was at this moment that Lydia looked over and saw that Ramsey was in the doorway, looking absolutely disturbed by what she had heard. Quickly, Lydia gestured toward her patient as the reasoning behind her erotica-filled speech. Ramsey shook her head and Lydia decided to keep going. “’I’m bad too!’ said Christy as she lubed up her surgical glove. And then Martha was poised behind her to—”

A huge surge went through the room as the power triumphantly returned to Seattle Grace and Eric’s porn returned to portraying women and men in the mot compromising positions.

“Oh, finally.” Lydia said, standing up from her comfortable reclining position in her chair and looking Eric square in the eye. “Remember, not a peep out of you about this.”

“Thank you so much.” Eric said, ushering her away so he could alleviate his pain in his preferred medium.

x

Lydia found Peter in an on-call room. It was time to talk to him. Enough with the avoiding, enough with everything going on between them. This was it. So, she barged in while Peter was taking his shirt off to sleep. To say that his chiseled perfection was distraction would have been a discarded and accurate assumption, but she’d seen so much porn today, that she had to reel it back in.

“So here’s the thing. I’m overworked, I’m competitive, I’m right because I’m always right, and I sometimes talk in my sleep.”

Taking everything in, Peter just said, “Okay…”

“This is me trying.” Lydia sighed. “Get on board or get in bed.”

“Oh!” Peter exclaimed, beaming at her declaration. “Sorry. So you’re saying…”

“Fine, we’re a couple. Don’t buy me flowers because I hate flowers. It’s not a big deal.”

Peter crooned, swooping her into his arms affectionately. “Oh, it’s about to be a big deal.”

Fighting every urge in her body, Lydia couldn’t help but let a yelp escape her as he pulled her close and began to kiss her neck, much like those she had heard during Eric’s lustful tapes. But she gave in to the fantasy, because what she wanted, needed, was Peter, and he knew exactly how to take care of her needs.

x

Outside of Sahna’s room, Stiles watched in amazement as a shaman performed his ritual to return her soul back to her body. There was this ethereal moment during the act that Sahna’s body shifted in her hospital bed and her body became lithe with posture, angling her body in such a way that Stiles thought would be utterly detrimental to comfort. But there was a glaze in Sahna’s eyes, and she nodded at Stiles, to which he responded accordingly.

“How long?” Derek commented, seeing the exchange between the two.

“Sorry?” Stiles laughed.

“To get her soul back. How long do you think something like that takes?”

“I don’t know.” Stiles said candidly. “But when someone learns where I lost mine, I’ll give you all the grisly details.”

Derek laughed, gesturing back behind them. “Let’s start getting ready for surgery.”

And then they were operating. Stiles had his grounds with Derek personally, everything that had happened between them consumed every thought of every waking day that involved the sun rising, but that all washed away when he was in the OR. More precisely, there was something about when Stiles worked with Derek in the OR that made everything else…pointless. They were a great team, there really was no denying it. The way they ebbed and flowed through every movement together, through every motion that saved the patient. It was an art, what they had. And as they wrapped up in the scrub room, Stiles wasn’t sure that he was ready to end anything with Derek. Derek smiled at him as he finished scrubbing his hands, planning on leaving the scrub room, and Stiles had to lift this anvil off of his chest.

“I was wrong.”

Spinning back around, Derek stifled a sigh and looked into those ridiculously gorgeous orbs Stiles had for eyes.

“What?”

“I lied to you. I didn’t mean what I said before, I’m not done…with this relationship. I’m here. I’m in.” Stiles lolled his eyes around in his head, clashing together off key in a true representation of how this was all coming out. “And the worst part of it all is here I am, groveling in front of the man that I’m trying to win over.”

In true Derek fashion, he looked Stiles over like it was the sweetest thing he had ever seen, and gave the smallest of smiles. “Stiles—”

“Shut up.” Stiles scoffed up a feeble smile. “You say Stiles and I bitch at you, remember?”

Another small laugh, and Derek rolled on his heels to let Stiles deliver what he was hoping was a conceding to conceding on their relationship. “Right.”

“Alright, here I go.” Stiles scoffed again, ready to do this, ready to admit this to himself. “Your choice? It’s easy.” He was four words in, and he already felt his voice shaking and tears marbling against his eyes. He pushed through, this had to happen. Had to be right now. “Her or me. And I’m sure she’s even more amazing than I’ve been able to witness. But Derek…” _Out with it, Stiles. SAY IT_. “I love you.” A flood of release met him, his tears trying to overwhelm him in the best way possible. Derek reacted to the proclamation by shifting his stance, nearing Stiles evermore, but his former flame was far from done. “I just love you. And I think you might love me too. Because I love you, Derek. In a really, really big…pretend to like your mother, let you have the last piece of pizza, throw my fist up in the air while walking across a football field because I got you, devastating way that makes me hate you, love you. So pick me. Choose me. Love me.”

Derek went for the embrace, but Stiles stopped it just in time and back away so he could finish.

“I’ll be at Joel’s, waiting. So if you decide to really do this and sign the papers and truly give this thing we have a shot? Meet me there.”

Not wanting to dwell on the raw emotion he was displaying, Stiles ran out of the room. Derek felt overcome with sorrow, over doing this to Stiles, over doing this to himself, over doing this to Julia. Everything was so crazy and everything was so far from idyllic. He wanted Stiles, wanted him like he needed to breathe. But in order to accept this offer from the man he loved, he had to destroy Julia. Desecrate everything she had built within herself to let Derek know that she still wanted him. Which was the right choice? Was the right thing to do the right thing for him?

Derek didn’t have the answer, but later across the street at the bar where he had first met Derek, he’d wonder if his knight in shining whatever would show up and pick him, because it was what Stiles wanted more than anything else.


	6. You Have To Let Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A train derailement sends the doctors of Seattle Grace running in a panic. Scott and Allison tend to pregnant women burdened by the accident, Lydia works to recover a severed leg for a patient before the Chief runs out of patience, Isaac savors in the glory from the elevator incident by being the go-to intern for two patients who have a pole stuck between them, and Stiles seeks alcohol to wait for Derek's answer, and Derek follows his heart and makes his choice: Julia or Stiles?

Stiles’ eyes kept turning back to the door. Ever since he had arrived at Joel’s, he’d been drinking and watching the door and drinking some more which usually followed more watching of the door. He was so nervous, he was sweating tequila at this point. His thoughts were wrapped around the last things he’d said to Derek. He’d actually said it. He’d actually told Derek that he loved him.

And now, he was across the street from the hospital, getting a little too drunk because he’d told the man he loved that he really did love him. Which wasn’t exactly a fun thing when the man you loved had a wife. A perfectly perfect wife at that. But Stiles still had hope. There was a chance that they could happen, that ‘Sterek’ could become a real, tangible thing. And Stiles so missed tangible things with Derek.

He tossed back another tequila shot, letting hit glass clang loudly on the bar when he looked at Joel and said, “I actually told him to pick me. Those words seriously came out of my mouth.” Stiles looked for an answer in Joel’s eyes, even though the only thing there was sympathy for his situation. “I actually did that?”

“It’s romantic.” Joel smiled supportively. “You were being super romantic.”

“But it’s not romantic, it’s humiliating.” Stiles argued, picking at the empty peanut shells that he had eaten almost an hour before. Time was ticking further and further away and there was still no sign of Derek. “It’s like walking-into-class-in-high-school-with-no-pants-on humiliating!”

“Okay, okay,” Joel conceded, putting up his hands in mock defeat. “I get how you think what you did was a little…raw.”

“I said pick me!” Stiles buried his head in his hands, horrified at what he had done, and what it might have cost him.

Across the bar were his friends, trying to give Stiles space to…well, they weren’t really sure anymore. They were trying to be subtle about how intently they were watching Stiles lose it by continuing a since careless game of darts, and Lydia didn’t want to assume that she was beating Isaac, but she assumed as such anyway.

“How long do you think you’re supposed to wait when you tell someone to meet you in a bar?” Lydia chimed on as she finished throwing a few darts and letting Isaac retrieve them. “How long until it’s too humiliating to watch without feeling guilty?”

“You really think he’s not coming?” Isaac wasn’t sure what had happened between Derek and Stiles, but honestly thought that Derek would have been here by now.

“I really hope he is.” Allison said, finishing the last of her white wine. “After an hour, this is getting a little too hard to watch, especially if Lydia is commenting on it.”

Stiles slammed his fists down on the bar counter drunkenly. “You know I can still hear you guys, right? That just because I’ve been drinking, I haven’t lost my auditory senses?” Stiles scoffed, gesturing his words toward Joel even though he was facing his friends when he next spoke. “Those people over there that call themselves my friends? Are talking about how pathetic I am, behind my back, yet still somehow in front of my face.” He scowled the last part back at the said friends, picking up the earlier abandoned beer in front of him and taking a giant swig from its long neck.

The door chimed open, twitching its frame to a more open position. All of them craned their necks to see Derek walk through the door and muster up the strength to swoop Stiles into his arms for a massive reunion kiss. Only it wasn’t Derek, again. Just another nurse from the hospital looking for sympathy at the end of a shot glass. Stiles shook his head and stared at the ashes of the peanut shells before him. “Oh my God. He’s actually not coming.”

Joel went to console him further with a speech full of affirmations, but every intern’s pager started to cricket loudly within the bar, catching all of them in a state of panic. What could possibly be big enough that they needed all of them to come back on shift? An answer in the form of a news report on the bar’s sizeable television came blaring at them in full horror. There had been a massive train derailment just moments ago, and the casualties were piling up as quickly as Stiles had downed the last five shots of Patron.

“911.” Allison said. “After a thirty-hour shift. Fantastic.” She scoffed.

They all gathered their things and started to get ready for their leave of the bar as the news report continue to claim how bad this was and was going to be for everyone involved, which definitely included Seattle’s most promising doctors. Stiles shifted off of his barstool and grabbed his coat to leave, Joel swinging back around to face him and gave him arched eyebrows of concern.

“Wait, you’re not going, are you?”

“Got to.” Stiles avowed. “Time for someone else’s train wreck to get all my attention.”

Joel’s expression soured. “You need to at least have a cup of coffee before you go. I wouldn’t feel right letting you practice any sort of medicine right now.” He smiled. “Plus, I wanna see the grand finale of this.”

“Finales are overrated, Joel.” Stiles said, shrugging and gathering the rest of wits before exiting the bar and making his way back over to the hospital.

When the interns arrived at the pit entrance, it was utter chaos. Five ambulances were divvying up patients from the vehicles into the ER of the hospital, where they would assess injuries and find the best way to help the victims of the train wreck. All of them struggled to get inside so they could all have a slice of the action. But the true action was to be found back across the street, at Joel’s bar.

Because Joel watched in amazement as Derek drew back the door and stumbled in like some sort of anti-punctual prince, looking around the bar for Stiles. Seeing the look of frantic searching alarming around the corneas of Derek’s eyes, Joel shook his head at him and declared, “Dude, you’re late!”

Back at the hospital, the interns were back in their medical best and ready to receive their patients as they waited for the elevator to take them back down to the pit. Everyone kept keeping their eyes on Stiles, who hadn’t said much the entire time they’d been back at the hospital. No one wanted to say what everyone was thinking. Derek had chosen Julia. He had Stiles were over. No one wanted to accept that outcome for Stiles. But Stiles wasn’t thinking, because the liquor forming lakes in his veins were too busy telling him that he needed to throw up to notice something as simple as thinking about Derek. He tried to sober up in that moment, while Scott avoided Allison’s gaze, but it wasn’t a switch. He needed to help people, but how could he when he couldn’t even help himself?

As his friends pulled on their yellow procedural gowns, Stiles stood by them and stared off into the void. Could Derek have really picked Julia? Could he have really given up everything that they had? The history, the chemistry, the hot hot sex. Could everything between them be over, just like that?

“Did you see that?” Lydia asked them, as she finished tying on her gown. “That was totally a pneumothorax. I’d kill for my own pneumothorax.”

Scott was shocked to be greeted by Allison, who began to help him into his gown, tying it tightly around his muscled frame.

“I thought we weren’t talking.” Scott smirked.

“I’m trying this new thing called rising above.” Allison determined. “Plus, it seems like you could use a friend.”

“And why do I need a friend?”

She looked at him like he had just spoken Mandarin for the first time during their friendship. “Um, because of the elevator thing?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You failed to crack open a chest, in front of our Head of Cardio. That wouldn’t make me feel fine.”

“Isaac got lucky.” Scott scoffed.

Allison shrugged defiantly. “Regardless, I’m here to talk if you need it.”

It was during this candid exchange that Ramsey came sauntering into the hospital toward them, scantily glad in a beautiful plum number that accurately displayed every curve she allowed out for the night. Her lipstick was a vicious black and her gold accessories spoke of exquisite taste, and every one of them had never in their wildest fantasies could have ever seen their resident in this way.

“Every one of you better get your jaw from this floor before I start divvying up scut.” Ramsey had a way of bending them to her will, and with these lasso-laced words, this time was no different. She tossed her keys at Scott. “You. Get my shoes from my car.” She looked back at the rest of them. “Let’s get moving.” Ramsey finished pulling on her own gown and walked over to see Stiles leaning sloppily off of a wall.

“Wow, Ramsey. You look hot!” Stiles smiled, then, realizing where he was and who he had just spoken to, he added, “Sorry. I seem to be drunk off my ass.”

Rolling her eyes, Ramsey turned from her drunkest intern to the remaining idiots. “Anyone else currently cuddling with Jose Cuervo?”

“Actually, it was Patron.” Stiles interjected.

A sinister stare was enough to erase the lasting effects of whimsy from Stiles’ face. His friends shook their heads in regards to her aforementioned question. “Good. We’re going to need all the hands we have on this one. About 300 passengers were aboard that train.” Ramsey looked at Stiles one last time. “Stiles, just stay out of the way, I’ll deal with you later.” To the rest of them, she continued with, “Stick close to me and I’ll give assignments as they come. It’s going to be one hell of a night. I hope you’re all wide awake and ready for the carnage we’re about to set foot in. No mistakes, got it?”

Ramsey pushed through the door that separated them from the public, and the ER was the exact carnage that she had promised her interns. They all stared with wide, eager irises at all the potential cases that they could possibly have their hands on, in, or some variation thereof.

“I am so not tired anymore.” Lydia laughed pointedly.

“Me either.” Isaac stepped forward. “What is sleep?”

Stiles had followed them into the pit, but there was no way he was going to enact his education tonight and follow up on some medicine. He spotted Julia across the room, tending to a burn victim with her perfectly poised gesturing and her bejeweled doe eyes. Trying to ignore the possibility of Derek settling back to life with his wife, Stiles walked across the room and found a spot on the wall to cling to until further notice. If his order was to stay out of the way, then they’d totally forget he was there. Because at that moment, Stiles just wanted to disappear.

“Dr. Ramsey, this is pretty serious.” Julia pipped. “I could really use some help here.”

Without hesitation, all the interns raised their hands, but ultimately Ramsey decided that Allison was to tend to Julia’s every need. _Better her than me_ , Stiles thought.

A nurse that Stiles recognized, but who’s name escaped him at the moment, came sauntering up to him with vigorous intent.

“Hey, Joel told me to let you know that McSteamy came looking for you.”

Stiles’ eyes throbbed within his skull. Derek had shown up? “You mean ‘McDreamy’. Joel said McDreamy came by looking for me?”

“I think it was McSteamy.” Nurse Todd said. “But sure.”

Back across the pit, Derek entered as groggily as he had ran into Joel’s bar. His eyes skimmed the room until they fell on Stiles. Stiles couldn’t read anything in them, no _it’s you_ or _it’s her_ , just that Derek had made a decision and that they needed to talk. But then someone called Derek’s name for a patient and he went running over to assist. Stiles just closed his eyes and tried to conjure up the strength to get through the rest of this work shift.

A paramedic burst through the bay doors and raised something in his hand.

“I got the leg!”

The entire room looked on with such an expression that was a mix between _holy shit_ and _I wish that was my case_.

“That’s my leg.” Lydia nodded hungrily. “I want that leg.”

He brought the leg over to Chief Deaton, who quickly got the details on the patient before looking over to Ramsey. “Who you got?”

Lydia and Isaac both too enthusiastically waved themselves before her. Ramsey sighed deeply before pointing at one of them. “Lydia, go.”

“Yes! My leg!” She mocked Isaac quickly and then strode of with the Chief.

“Book an OR,” Deaton told her. “Rule out anything else that could have caused the injury.”

“Absolutely, sir.”

She left the pit with her newly awarded patient as Deaton hung back to catch Derek calling out for him. Derek left the patient he was reviewing and stopped before the handsome Chief of Surgery.

“Derek—”

“Any headaches?”

“What? No, Derek, you need to clear me. We need every surgeon we have on this.”

“Nausea? Blurred vision? Any sort of dizziness?”

“Dammit, Derek, clear me or you’re fired!”

“Fine.” He retreated. “But I’m coming with you.”

Rolling his eyes, Deaton allowed it as they made their way out of the pit. As they walked, Derek dared a glance at Stiles. And gave him a little nod. Stiles kept his face neutral until Derek and the Chief exited the ER. Isaac, having witnessed the weird head tilt, came over to Stiles instantly.

“Did he, like, nod?”

“I think so.” Stiles said evenly.

“…Do we know what that’s supposed to mean?”

“I…I’m not sure what it means.”

As Isaac dissipated and Scott proudly brought Ramsey her shoes, Stiles watched as they wheeled in a pair of patients stuck on a gurney together. And they had a massive piece of a pole sticking straight through them and he knew it was horrible, but Stiles couldn’t help but think that maybe someone might just be having a worse day than him.

x

Ramsey was giving orders to her interns, and Stiles was still just sort of going through the haze of being around but not really helping. He was inspecting the patients with the pole, trying not to gawk at them, which was easier said than done. I mean, how many people could say they saw a metal pole connecting two people that were upright and talking? It was a marvel of a case, and even if Stiles couldn’t practice medicine, at least he could look.

“Lahey.” Ramsey’s voice boomed around the room, but her eyes were intent on Stiles, mouthing for him to step back and let the sober doctors work. As he stepped away and continued to be seen and not heard, Ramsey refocuses her attention on Isaac. “Get them down to X-ray, carefully, okay?”

“Really?” Isaac beamed, silently thanking the Gods above him for the opportunity. He whispered closely so just Stiles could hear. “Thank you, Heart in the Elevator.”

Smiling softly, Stiles spectated the event of transporting the two patients, Clyde and Lynette, out of the trauma room where Isaac would escort them as safely as possible back down to X-ray. Ramsey started walking out of the trauma room then, so Scott and Stiles mimicked the action as she began to speak.

“McCall, why don’t you head down and cover the ER for a while.” She sneered devilishly as her next words came flying out like they were from a broken turbine. “You can suture up the more fortunate victims while you contemplate your newfound queasiness around scalpels.”

The reference to the elevator incident hit his pride hard, but Scott just shimmied away with a little less than a grunt. Surprised, Stiles waved his hand in front of Ramsey. Because apparently, he was still drunk enough to think that if he didn’t move, no one could see him.

“That was mean, even for you.”

Ramsey just gazed, like she didn’t care. Which honestly, she probably didn’t. “You really are drunk.” She sighed. “Go get a damn banana bag IV and then you can come jab at me with your pleas. Do not talk to patients, do not talk to doctors. Do. Not. Talk. Got it?”

“Should I just go home?” Stiles hoped this was the case because his stomach was starting to turn, whether it was from Derek’s decision or the tequila, he was unsure.

“Unless you sucked down the entire bottle, you’ll be sober in a couple hours. The fluids will do you good and help curve that growing hangover. If I’m not going home, guess what that means for you fools?”

Ramsey walked away, talking to herself under her breath about her date with her husband being cut short and the thirty-dollar lobster that she didn’t get to finish. Stiles was happy to get the IV bad because, well, he could use the distraction.

x

In Maternity, Allison was tending to her burn patient, and Winter was awfully burn. The train’s collision with itself had set her skin ablaze, and Allison was doing her best to salvage what skin she could. Julia was going over the readouts of the machine that Winter was hooked up to, engrossed in its contents. Allison couldn’t help but stare, given how things were still lingering in the ether with the whole Stiles / Derek / Julia situation. She tried to keep her focus on the burns, but Julia was quick to notice her swiping glances.

“Dr. Argent, do you need something?” She sniped.

Embarrassed, Allison just said. “Sorry, no.”

Winter started to exclaim heavily. At first, Allison thought it was because of the burns and how she was handling Winter’s burnt tissue. But then it became apparent that something else entirely was affecting Winter in even more painful ways than her singed skin.

“Was that…”

“A contraction.” Julia said, answering Winter’s assumption. “Definitely. Argent, we need to book an OR.” She watched Allison nod and head out of the room to make the arrangements. “Winter, listen, there’s no way you can push in your condition, but that baby is still a little rowdy from all the excitement. We have to proceed with a C-section.”

“Oh…I suppose…do you think we could call someone first?” Winter said, her breathing hitching from either a small contraction or the pain from her burning lesions. “I don’t have a will or anything and I need my baby to be covered in case something happens to me.” Panic rang a bell in her throat, a choke rattling from the back of her mouth.

“It’s okay, there’s no need to get upset.” Julia smiled, trying to ease her concerns. “We have some time.”

Allison made her way back through the ER, heading for the nurse’s station when she walked by a closed curtain and heard a familiar voice saying “ow” and “dammit” repeatedly. In a quick maneuver, she drew back the curtain to reveal Stiles trying to insert his own banana bag IV.

“Seriously?”

Laughing slightly, Allison walked over to him and took the IV, intending to insert it herself for him.

“I could have gotten it, you know.” There was still a slight wobble to his speech, a verbal wave hanging on tightly to his uvula.

“You could have broken this needle in your skin is what you could have done. Better to have someone who didn’t down ten shots taking care of it for you.” She snickered.

“So what’s the word?” When Stiles was met with a furrowed brow, he rolled his eyes at Allison. “With Julia. Is she happy? Sad? ‘I can’t wait to go back to sleeping with my husband’ look in her eyes?”

“Jesus, Stiles.” She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure the only look in her eyes says ‘Boy, I hate all  this smoked flesh’.”

“Okay, before you get all First World Problems on me, I do realize that there was a train wreck. People are really hurt and I’m that narcissistic surgeon that’s only concerned about whether or not his married used-to-be boyfriend is still trying to slither into his bed.” Stiles gestured toward the ER, where everyone was still frantic about caring for everyone. “I do realize that.”

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I can’t stand her scrubs.” Allison stated, leaning toward him knowingly. “I mean, what kind of self-respective OB wears School Bus Yellow, ‘Where are you, Ms. Frizzle?’ scrubs?”

“Right? What the fuck.” Stiles laughed.

They enjoyed the moment together before Allison left and Stiles fiddled with his newly inserted banana bag, hoping he wasn’t vying for validation from Derek when he finally became sober.

x

Lydia had her leg. Granted, she was stuck to cleaning the severed leg and making sure that it was in perfect condition for when they reattached the limb, but it was _hers_. And the fact that Derek and Deaton were heading the surgery instead of her wasn’t dampening her day at all.

“How’s that leg looking, Martin?”

Lydia kept sifting through the tissue, but offered up an answer to the Chief simultaneously. “Perfect, sir. Mostly gravel and dirt, but it’s coming away nicely.”

Deaton looked back at Derek as the operated. “Lucky bastard. A clean cut. If we go about this accordingly, this guy will have full motion of this leg.” To a nurse, he added, “Some irrigation, please.”

A pager goes off then, an a nearby nurse goes to grab it.

“Dr. Hale, it’s for you.”

Derek didn’t want to leave the Chief, who still was so fresh from his own surgery, alone with a severed limb. So he just said, “I’m good right here.”

“Derek, don’t be stupid.” Deaton said. “I’m fine. And you’re our best neurosurgeon who is quite obviously needed more somewhere else. Just go.”

The pager goes off again. “Dr. Hale—”

“Alright, I’m going.” Derek nodded, locking eyes with Alan. “But If you start seeing any signs of—”

“Would you just go so I can operate? I have been doing this since before you graduated high school.” Deaton shook his head.

“Just page me if you need me, Alan.” Derek smile through his mask as he departed from the room.

As the door swung close, Lydia noticed that her leg…well, something was wrong. She didn’t want it to be, especially because this was her leg, but there was no denying it.

“Um, sir?”

“What is it, Martin?” Deaton kept his attention to the patient, not able to see the sweat running down Lydia’s temples or the terrified look in her eyes when she spoke to her superior.

She shyly wheeled over the leg that she had been cleaning and cleared her throat to get his attention. “If we attach this leg, he’ll have two left ones, sir.”

Caught off guard and immediately annoyed, Deaton shook his head and decreed, “Find the right damn leg, Martin!”

x

Observing Lynette and Clyde’s x-rays was a while array of doctors. Isaac and Ramsey were awaiting Peter’s full detail of what to do next before they opened their mouths to speak. But Isaac was looking at the films and decided to break the barrier of silence.

“It’s going straight through her spine.” He sighed.

Ramsey nodded. “T8’s completely minced.”

Listening to his earlier page, Derek strutted into the room and eyed Peter. “Got your page. What happened?”

Peter nodded toward the films. “Look for yourself.”

But his eyes didn’t go to the x-rays. They went straight to Stiles, who was carting around his banana bag with a rolling IV pole. “What happened?”

“Oh, just a visit from my old friend, tequila.” He smiled lazily.

“I’m keeping an eye on him.” Ramsey explained.

Looking back at the films, Derek winced. “Wow. And these people are still alive?”

“Alive and talking.” Peter added. “Pole’s tamponading the wound.”

“The aorta is right in the middle of it.” Derek pointed.

Peter agreed, moving his own finger further south. “And it’s synced up perfectly to his inferior vena cava.”

Isaac said, “Anyway to operate without moving them?”

Both Derek and Peter shook their heads and answered together. “No.”

“But they’ll bleed out if we move the pole…”

“They will.” Ramsey stated, shaking her head reluctantly.

“What if we don’t move it?” Peter suggested. “Move one of them off of the poll and repair the damage as we separate them?”

“But who do you move?”

Derek snuck a look at Stiles, and he was already looking at him. Just like before, they said nothing, both trying to communicate what they needed to the other by means of a simple stare. Unfortunately for both of them, their situation was anything but simple.

Peter pointed to the films to answer Isaac. “With her severe internal injuries, he has a better chance of survival if we pull her off. The chances are slim no matter what we do, but he has the fighting chance to make it.”

Stiles rejoined the conversation. “So…whoever you move, has zero chance at making it?”

Silence slapped them all, keeping them awake at the reality of their patients’ future.

“So how do you do it?” Stiles kept going, adding fuel to the fire of the tragedy at hand. “How do you decide which one of them has to die?”

x

After about five minutes of strategy, no one could decide on the exact course of treatment. So Peter and Derek walked out of the room, with Ramsey and her two interns en route, and decided that they would make the call within the hour if they wanted to ensure that at least one of the patients survived. Peter walked off for other patients and Isaac made himself needed elsewhere to check on the pole patients. Derek turned around and went to try and talk to Stiles, even if Ramsey was right behind him.

“Stiles—”

“Stiles,” Ramsey got between them quickly, so quickly that Stiles’ IV pole ran into her gently. “Needs to get a blood alcohol test to see if he can do anything medical before this night is through.”

“Huh? No, I’m great!” Stiles made a show of bending over and touching his toes, then proceeded to do three jumping jacks. Derek smiled greatly, which Ramsey was quick to catch, and Stiles just stared down Ramsey. “I’m totally with it.”

Derek pressed on by moving forward, but Ramsey snapped a glare back at him, without a word needing to be said. “Alright, I’m going.”

He walked away, much to Stiles’ dismay, but Ramsey wasn’t letting him what he wanted that easily.

“I said I’m fine! I swear.” Stiles pleaded.

“Unless I see a test validating just how fine you are, you’re not getting into that mess.” Stiles widened his expression at her knowledge of his “mess” with Derek. “Of course I know. When are you fools going to learn that I know everything?” She smiled a little, which was a lot for her. “Get your results and then find me.”

x

Lydia was frantic, and for very good reason. It was bad enough that her reputation was being put to the test, but for it to be put to the test in front of the Chief of Surgery? No. No way in hell. So that’s why Lydia Martin was losing her mind as she tore apart the insides of ambulances in search of the missing leg. But she was, much like her patient, coming up short.

“What are you doing?”

She spun around to see a paramedic eyeing her inquisitively. “One of you brought in the wrong leg with my patient so I’m—”

“Oh, so all of us look the same, right?”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “I so don’t have the time to deal with your massive ego right now. If I don’t bring back a beautifully severed right leg, the Chief of Surgery is going to burn my perfect blue scrubs.”

“The train derailed and hit an overpass.” The paramedic said. “Your guy can live without his leg.”

Lydia, flustered as a frayed piece of fabric hanging from her favorite blouse, threw herself from the cab of the ambulance and scoffed as she looked directly into the paramedic’s eyes. “This is so not about the leg.”

As she walked off, she thought about becoming a bartender. Or maybe a seamstress. Or maybe just bussing tables. Because if she didn’t find this leg, she definitely wasn’t going to be a surgeon for much longer.

x

“Your scars won’t be too bad, so that part of your checkup is good.”

Scott was down in the pit, tending to one of the train victims that was fortunate enough to have slightly minor injuries. There were rumors going around that there were two patients connected through a freaking pole, but Scott was busy working the pit so he was tending to lesser cases than the grandeur ones of his peers. “Just a little while longer, Lana.”

The woman, pregnant and hurting, grabbed at her stomach. “I was with someone on the train…we’re both pregnant. Do you have any idea where she is?” Lana winced. “I believe she was burned.”

“She should be up in maternity,” Scott nodded. “I haven’t seen her down here.”

“Great. I’m going to maternity then.”

Lana started to begrudgingly go about getting out of the ER bed and attempting to leave Scott behind without so much of a hand of assistance.

“Lana, we still have to do a full check!”

She waved him off. “My baby is fine, and I have to see Winter. Book it!”

Lana hustled down the hall, and made Scott run after her before he lost his place in the program. Just across the room, Isaac was helping Stiles with drawing a little blood. Isaac, who was still feeling the high from the heart in the elevator spectacle, demonstrated the IV perfectly.

“Damn, Isaac.” Stiles smiled, still feeling the full effects of his alcohol abuse. “First the heart in the elevator and now my blood. You’re strung out on the scalpel.”

“What can I say? I’m good with my hands.” The friends laughed briefly before Isaac decided to turn the conversation down a little more serious backroad. “So…anything about…”

Derek’s name didn’t come barreling out of Isaac’s mouth, but Stiles could still decipher it even through the sticky fog of libation swimming in his veins. “No. It’s like I suddenly can’t read him or something.”

“I still think it’s pretty incredible that you even allowed him a choice. And not that it means much,” Isaac gazed at Stiles evenly. “But he’s clinically insane if he doesn’t pick you.”

Stiles smiled at his friend right as Lydia came stomping up to them, looking like she was seconds away from taking a scalpel to everyone’s neck in the building.

“Please tell me that one of you has a right leg. A cleanly severed right leg?”

“Uh…no?” Isaac grimaced.

“Useless.”

Lydia stormed away again, leaving the stain of surprise, along with a smile, on Stiles’ lips. “How weird is this job?”

x

Allison watched as a woman bombarded herself into her patient’s room, and Scott was dragging himself behind her. Seeing what the commotion was all about, Allison watched once more as Julia looked at Scott and the new patient like the room had just caught fire.

“Winter!” Lana exclaimed with soulful vitality, stumbling over to her friend and hugging her haphazardly through all the IVs and various wires that were monitoring Winter and her baby.

“Lana, thank God you’re alright!”

“Dr. McCall, what’s going on?” Julia’s stare was a deadly black widow, and Scott was merely a housefly tempting disaster.

“She wanted to see her friend, and I couldn’t stop her so—”

“She was on the train?”

“Well, yeah…”

Anger webbed within the chambers of Julia’s vocal chords. “So since you’re allowing her to run about this hospital, I’m assuming you’ve done an ultrasound?” Scott said nothing. “Cleared her C-spine?” Scott said nothing. “Is there any reason, any absolute way you think this patient should be wandering around this hospital?” Scott said nothing, for her feared at this point that something would get him fired. “Get out, McCall. You’re done here.” Scott said nothing evermore, and didn’t move. “Go!”

He rolled his eyes as he acquired his exit, ignoring the bitch that was Julia Blake as Allison stood there, stoic and silent, for she too stayed with the notion of saying nothing. Julia made her way over to Allison as Winter and Lana got reacquainted.

“Jesus.” Julia crossed her arms and scoffed silently to the tune of Scott’s name. “Foolish. I mean, even for an intern.” Allison said nothing. “You don’t agree?”

Sighing, Allison just said, “What was he supposed to do, dive after her?”

Adding a sigh to Allison’s, Julia looked over at Lana briefly before stating, “Dr. Argent, why don’t you help our new patient into bed?”

Agreeing, Allison just did that and thought about how Scott must be feeling. The elevator, their date, and not Julia was busting his balls. Maybe something was going on with him that he wasn’t talking about. Allison didn’t want to make up excuses for him, but maybe there was more to meets the eye when it came to the complex nature of Scott McCall.

x

Grateful, Lydia breezily sauntered through the OR with a red garbage bag full of the limb that was going to salvage her career and what standing she still had with the Chief of Surgery. Deaton was still performing on the patient and wasn’t quite ready for the leg, but he was pleased by her attendance nonetheless.

“Martin, it’s about time.” He smiled behind his mask. “I was beginning to wonder if we would ever attach a leg to this man today.”

“Sorry, sir.” Lydia admitted. “A couple detours, but I found the leg. I took it upon myself to check the wound, it’s clean and persevered just like we need.”

“Wonderful.”

Lydia turned away after placing the leg on the table to get scrubbed back in, but Deaton noticed something that Lydia must have overlooked.

“Martin!”

She whipped her head back around so face, she was afraid she’d have to wear a brace tomorrow morning. “Sir?”

“Did you happen to notice anything else about this leg before you got here?”

“…Sir?”

“Like the face that it looks like this?” He ripped back the dressings over the leg, exposing that this leg had been freshly shaven and its toes were painted a rusted red color. “My patient is a 45-year-old male truck driver, Martin. Does he look like the type that chose Dirty Apple for his toes this morning?”

Mortified, Lydia was mortified. “I’m so sorry, Sir. I’ll go, uh, go get the right right, the right right leg…”

“GO!”

She left the OR for the second time, knowing that her career was back in Limbo.

x

Stiles had been right about Derek. Isaac was unable to read him either. As they sat in the room with the pole patient’s films, waiting for Peter and Ramsey, it was clear that Derek was keeping himself clear-headed about all things Stiles related.

The labs had revealed that the pole was effecting Lynette worse than Clyde, and they needed to discuss they’re next steps before they were to operate around the metal obstruction. Finally, as Isaac thought he saw a twinge of Stiles in Derek’s eye, Ramsey and Peter made themselves aware in the room.

“What’s the verdict?” Peter said brazenly, aiming his words at his nephew.

“As much as it pains me to say,” Derek smirked. “You were right.” Then, just like before, he washed away his sentiments so that nothing remained on his face too long. “Her vitals say it all. Erratic. Weak pulse. Severed spine. I was hoping that the pole wasn’t hitting from that angle, but it just won’t miss the aorta no matter what we do.”

“Think he can make it?” Ramsey pondered aloud. “What are his odds?”

“He has the odds.” Derek nodded.

Ramsey turned to Isaac. “Let OR 1 know we’re coming.”

“Right.”

Isaac meant to leave the room, but his thoughts on the pole patients were too loud to allow him to leave without turning back to his superiors. “How do you tell someone that she’s gonna be dead in a few minutes?”

x

Lydia was trying everything she could think of to find that damn leg. Currently, she was on the phone, begging with someone at the crash site to sift through the carnage of the mangled body parts to find her right leg so that he surgical career didn’t end before it began. But she was getting nowhere fast. It wasn’t until the hung up on her that Peter came striding over to her, looking on as she slammed the receiver of the phone back down to its rightful home.

“You paged?” Peter wagged his eyebrows. “On call room?”

Lydia wasn’t even remotely in the mood to play innuendo. “No. If I don’t find this leg, the Chief is going to send me packing back home to LA. I can’t go back, Peter. It’s…sunny there. Everyday!”

“So then you paged me because…”

“HELP ME FIND THE DAMN LEG.” She lowered her voice then, as her outburst had garnered her an audience. “I checked the board before I paged you, you’re not scheduled a surgery. I mean, you’re my boyfriend.” He had to smile at the title, because it was the first time that Lydia was acknowledging it out loud and for anyone to hear. “I’m just saying, you’re my boyfriend. I’m new to this, but aren’t boyfriends supposed to help with stuff like this?”

“With finding you severed legs?”

“Peter.”

“When we’re on duty, I can’t be your boyfriend, Lydia.” He smiled despite his words.”

“So when we’re working, I can have sex with someone else?”

If people weren’t listening to them before, at the sound of the word sex spewing forth from Lydia’s mouth, there definitely were now. “O...kay.” Peter said, inching backwards. “Dr. Martin, I’m walking away now.

As he left, Lydia cried, “When I’m forced to move back home, you might remember this conversation!”

x

Standing in an open doorway out of the way, facing each other, Scott was describing to Stiles his last interaction with Queen on Neonatal.

“Julia yelled at you in front of Allison? And two patients?”

“Yell isn’t exactly the right word, she wasn’t mean about it.” Scott sighed, but Stiles just stared at him waiting for a better description of Julia, especially with how up in the air things were for Stiles in regards to Julia and Derek. “Okay, fine. She’s Satan’s whore.”

“Thank you.” Stiles smirked. “Anyway, did you yell back at her?”

“No, I just walked away.”

“Dude, you totally lost your balls.”

“What?”

Stiles rolled his eyes, more at himself than at Scott. “Sorry, I was trying to speak straight boy.”

“Well stop. It’s weird.” Frustrated, Scott went on. “Lahey plugs a hole with his fricken finger and now everyone thinks he’s God’s gift to surgery.”

“I mean, you did choke.”

“Shut up.”

“Why didn’t you kiss Allison?”

The sudden shift in subject didn’t matter to Scott. It was the fact that he hadn’t thought about Allison all day until Stiles mentioned her that upset him. “I’m leaving.”

But before he could leave, Lydia interrupted looking completely unsealed. “Do I look like I like the sun? I’m a ginger. A pasty, pasty ginger and I HATE the sun. How is one hairy, bloody leg going to send me to the hottest Hell on Earth!?”

Lydia runs off then, Leaving Scott and Stiles to stare at each other.

“She hates the sun?” Scott wondered.

Stiles smiled. “She hates everything, she’s fine.”

x

            Back in Winter and Lana’s room, Winter was lying on her side while Lana coaxed her through the pain in the chair next to her. Allison perfectly administered an injection for Winter, through Julia’s guidance.

“There, right at the vertebral braces. Don’t worry about pressure.”

“You’re doing so good, Winter.” Lana was the perfect cheerleader.

“Now Winter, I do want to warn you.” Julia began as Allison finished retracting the injection and cleaning up the area. “The trauma from your burns put you at an unsurmounted risk of shock.”

“That’s…no, she’s going to be fine.” Lana decided, looking from the doctors to Winter. “You’re going to be fine, do you hear me?”

“Lana, we still have to sign the forms.” Winter pleaded. “I mean, unless you want our son to end up with my mom.”

Without missing a beat, Lana grabbed the forms for the notary in case something happened to Winter and quickly signed her name.

“How long have you two been together?” Allison smiled.

“Third grade.” Winter and Lana answered together. When both Allison and Julia gave them cocked eyebrows, Lana explained. “We’re best friends, not lovers. We just wanted our babies to have two parents so—”

“Your babies are from the same donor?” Julia questioned.

“That’s amazing.” Allison added.

Suddenly, Lana gasped. “It’s wet.”

“What?”

“Wet.” Lana repeated. “I think my water just broke.”

x

With her tail firmly tucked between her legs, Lydia made her way back to Deaton’s OR. She had failed. The leg was no more. She was already dreading the trip back to LA when Deaton fired her and she had no choice but to move back in with her mother, and that thought alone was enough to put Lydia on the fourth floor of the hospital to see the rest of her days played out in Psych.

Resigned, Lydia opened the doors and said, “I’m so sorry, Chief, I looked everywhere and—”

But when Lydia looked up, she saw that Deaton was already reattached the right limb back onto his patient. And standing beside him was Scott.

“Sir, you found the leg?” Lydia said to Deaton.”

“ _I_ found the leg. Someone found it at the ambulance bay.”

“You missed a hell of a surgery, Martin.” Deaton called back to her. “Sorry to say you missed it. McCall and I can handle it from here.”

Lydia gave Scott the dirtiest look for being in the right place and the right time and taking her leg right along with her rapport with the Chief.

x

As everyone prepared Lynette and Clyde for the surgery in the operation room, Ramsey and Isaac were scrubbing in, watching Derek and Peter explain everything to them in great detail.

“Why does it feel like we’re about to kill this girl?” Ramsey said, a sigh hanging heavy in her voice, scratching to stay attached to her uvula.

Stiles came crashing through the door to the scrub room as loudly as the reality of the situation for the pole patients did. “Dr. Ramsey.” He handed a thin layer of papers to his resident. “My lab results.”

“Sober?”

Stiles nodded. “Can I scrub in?”

“Better make it fast.” Ramsey handed him back the papers, which Stiles stashed for later disposal. Isaac was drying his hands when Ramsey left for the OR and Derek entered to scrub. The attending started to wash his hands as Isaac locked eyes with Stiles. “Isaac.” He said under his breath. Catching the hint, Isaac went through the adjoining door to the OR and left the two alone.

It was the first time they’d been alone since the last scrub room they’d been in. Pick me. Choose me. Love me. Those words were blaring in both of their ears right now, beating along with the sound of their heartbeats. There were a lot of stares between them as they scrubbed their hands clean on bacteria, hoping the other would just start the conversation. What was going to be said horrified Stiles, until he couldn’t take it anymore.

They locked eyes and he said, “Hey.”

“Hey.” Derek said back, smiling wide as he tied his scrub cap tightly around his head, concealing the dark, thick black hair that Stiles’ hands had missed so much.

Derek went back to scrubbing, but Stiles’ eyes kept wandering back to his former lover. Why wasn’t he saying anything? Good or bad, why was this encounter so silent? He just wanted to know, wanted the waiting to be over. He’d done his waiting, thirteen hours of it, in this hospital, so what else was Derek waiting on?

“I…” Derek started, but waiting for Stiles to catch his eyes again before he went on. Once they were connected again, through their perfect Sterek stare, Derek continued. “I went to the bar.”

“I heard.”

A smile beamed over the horizon of Derek’s face, but it fell so fast, Stiles thought he had imagined the smile to begin with. Derek looked away, drying his hands quickly. There was nothing, continued nothing that said everything. Stiles knew in that moment, when he was unable to look away from Derek and Derek was unable to look at Stiles any longer, that the answer became radiant and all too blinding.

“Oh.” The cracks of Stiles’ heart echoed in his ears, in both of their ears. That one simple word spoke more heartbreak than either of them could bear. “You choose Julia.”

Derek dared to look at Stiles, not really knowing what to say. Ultimately, he just nodded ever so slightly before looking at him. And the watery film over Stiles’ eyes broke his heart even more than he felt it breaking. “She’s my wife.”

Breaking the moment, alarms sounded. Ramsey called from the OR. “Dr. Hale, she’s crashing!”

Immediately, Stiles was left alone in the scrub room and he felt shattered. Like Derek’s words were a blistering baseball and he was a window, taking a hit from the ball of fury. Why had he had such high hopes? Why would he possibly think that Derek would pick him? He was an intern. He was…ordinary.

Too soon, he had to jump back into being a doctor. He made his way into the OR as they were pulling Lynette off the pole and trying to tend to her. Clyde was stable for the moment, so they were giving Lynette the best shot they could while Clyde remained at a standstill.

“Let’s see what we can do, people.” Peter told them. “Scalpel.”

“Stiles, get in here and help retract.”

He obeyed his resident, trying not to look at Derek when someone handed him the retractor and they worked to alleviate some of Lynette’s injuries. Stiles took the retractor from Derek as they handed the neuro attending the cautery.

“No, her aorta is shredded.” Peter shook his head. “She’s going to bleed out.”

“Doctors, Clyde is losing pressure.”

“Alright, let’s go to him.”

Everyone went over to Clyde, leaving Lynette completely alone. All that was left was Stiles, wondering what to do to save her. “No.” No matter how hard he tried to focus, he couldn’t. He looked at Lynette on the table, internally bleeding to death, and all he could see was himself on the table. Stiles was staring at himself on that table and it was all too much for him. “No! We can’t just abandon her! What about her!?” He was surprised he could keep his synonyms straight. He knew that it was Lynette before him, but all he saw was himself, broken, dying, shattered.

“Come on, Dr. Stilinski.” Ramsey bellowed from the other side of the room.

But only Isaac noticed the single tear staining Stiles cheek. Somehow, Stiles knew that Isaac knew. That he wasn’t just talking about Lynette, that Stiles had gotten his answer in the scrub room.

“Stiles.”

He called to him, but Stiles was shaking Lynette’s body.

“We can’t just abandon him!”

“Stiles!” Isaac tried again, but Stiles said nothing.

Derek noticed too. He stopped working on Clyde and looked at Stiles. But seeing him like that hurt way too much, and he needed to save the remaining patient. So, he looked away, which left Ramsey to walk over to Stiles and Lynette.

“Stiles, there’s nothing more we can do for her.” Ramsey tried to reason with him, seeing the tears but not saying anything out of respect for her intern. “You have to let go.”

That’s when Lynette’s monitor went flatline, and it was all Stiles could hear. For Lynette. For Derek. For himself. Ramsey’s words rang even louder in his head as the growing seconds ticked off the clock. _You have to let go_.

No more wishful thinking, no more getting what he wanted. No more Derek.

Asystole. Dead. Done.

Over.


	7. Everyone Knows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> News about Stiles and Derek's relationship makes waves throughout the hospital as a man claiming to be pregnant is admitted. Lydia struggles to keep her romance with Peter a secret from her superiors, Scott and Allison still harbor ill-tidings over their horrendous date, and Derek tries his best to stay out of Stiles' life, even when it seems like the only thing Stiles is doing is falling apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, I know it's been a long time since I've posted, and if you're still interested in this story and are happy that this chapter is making it's way on here, thank you. Thank you for enjoying and thank you for reading. But the reason it's been so long is because I actually published my own novel! I finally finished it, after working so hard to perfect it and get it out into the world. So, if you enjoy my writing, and like young adult thrillers with LGBT characters, maybe check it out if you like?
> 
> And it's free to read on Smashwords! If you would like to see it, just search Sever by Jesse Grey. I'd appreciate anyone who checks it out and gives me some feedback on it. I'm super proud of it and I'm so happy to have my original writing out there in the world. Thanks again.
> 
> Anyway, back to our originally scheduled Sterek. Enjoy!

Walking into the interns’ locker room, Stiles felt weird. Not weird because it was finally sinking in that Derek had chosen Julia (He was still leagues away from accepting such a thing as factual), but he was feeling weird because he felt eyes on him. To be more specific, he felt every eye on him. As in anyone who happened across his path, anyone who sensed his appearance on the cusp, they ushered him looks that told him many things, but the most obvious was universal: Everyone knew about him and Derek.

  
He knew this because people were talking about him on the other side of the lockers from him, and they weren’t being coy about the subject matter of their conversation.

  
“How could he not know that he was married? And then his wife shows up with everything glamorous but a marbled runway and then he just dumps him. If you ask me, he got what was coming to him. What did he think was going to happen?” The intern scoffed. “Dating a damn attending.”

  
“Dating McDreamy.” Another one said, using the nickname Stiles himself and his friends used to reference the hunky neurosurgeon. “Can we talk about that hair? No guy wakes up that perfect.”

  
A third, aggravating intern added, “It’s sad, I mean, just really sad. She has to be here, with him, with both of them.” The intern sighed superiorly. “Everyone knows.”

  
If Stiles had any wits about him, he would have stormed over there and given them a perfectly spontaneous speech on how his private life was absolutely none of their business, but he was too wounded for such an act. Wounded from Julia’s victory, wounded from Derek’s choice. He was a temperamental rattlesnake, ready to issue venom but too scared to unclench his deadly jaws. Moving involved action, and Stiles had burned up all his action like calories, asking for Derek to pick him only to be humiliated when he didn’t.

  
Stiles didn’t have any fight left.

  
x

  
“Isn’t there something we can do?”

  
Out of all of Stiles’ friends, Isaac was the most worried. Sure, all of them were currently welling with indecisiveness when it came to the subject of how to cheer Stiles up after his rigorous we’re-finally-over from Derek, but Isaac, at least today, seemed to be the only one still worrying about overcoming said feat.

  
“Stiles is like a wounded kitten that everyone’s looking at, like something that you can’t look away from.” Isaac sighed. “Stiles is my Dad trying to sing the Macarena at the local county fair back in sixth grade.”

  
“Please don’t give this comparison to Stiles’ face.” Allison pleaded, patting Isaac’s shoulder as an olive branch of understanding.

  
“And…” Isaac waited until Allison went to go grab a chart to add, “This could just as easily be you if people found out about you and…Uncle Hale.”

  
“How do you…forget it. Shut your mouth.” Lydia cried, just as Allison returned.

  
“Don’t worry about Stiles, Isaac.” Allison gave Lydia a sharp gaze. “Lydia and I have everything under control.”

  
Lydia beamed, shaking off her earlier animosity toward Isaac. “Absolutely.”

  
“What? What is it you guys have?”

  
“Nothing.” They said together.

  
“Tell me!”

  
“There’s nothing to tell.” Allison shared a sneer with Lydia.

  
“SPILL!”

  
Just then, the interns began walking and, like usual, there was Ramsey, ready to decree her superiority over them for the day. And right behind her was Stiles, looking as disassociated as ever from the rest of them as well as reality.

  
“Where’s McCall?”

  
Allison huffed instantly, a puff of smoke spiraling toward a neon target. "If I had to guess, I'd say he's probably somewhere, not kissing people." Her inclination was direct, and it caused all the interns to smile to themselves. All, of course, except for Stiles.

  
"Alright, let's go."

  
Ramsey led them away from the hallway, ready to assign the assignments for the day. Both Lydia and Allison hung back to hover around Stiles, letting Isaac trail closely to Ramsey and her doberman march.

  
"So listen," Allison started, looking to Lydia to finish.

  
"After rounds and everything, there's something we have to show you."

  
But Stiles expression was black, void. He didn't even react to their words. They would have questioned his vitals if it weren't for the fact that he was walking with them and blinking, albeit stoic and silent as he was.

  
"Stiles? Are you there?"

  
Lydia rolled her eyes, reaching behind Stiles to swat at Allison. "Really? Of course he's here, he's not deaf."

  
"Yeah, well he looks...weird."

  
"Of course he looks weird," Lydia agreed. "Derek didn't pick him, he's having a mental breakdown."

  
"Is that it, Stiles? Are you having a mental breakdown?" Allison resumed her tone of voice that would have suited that of a young child as opposed for the reality of it being for a fellow colleague.

  
Breaking his earlier vigil of silence, Stiles stopped walking and defiantly threw both of them acidic daggers with his eyes. "I am NOT having a mental breakdown."

  
Lydia, enjoying the outburst, let her eyes rest over Allison. "See? He's fine." The excitment leaked back into her voice, the same excitment that had been there when she was first reciting to Stiles that they had something beautiful to show him. "Seriously, Stiles, this thing we have to show you...it's major. So, like, do whatever you can to not get assigned to a surgery this morning."

  
Making their way to the elevator, everyone piled in. Except for Stiles.

  
Because across the way, there they were. Derek and Julia. Being...Derek and Julia. He couldn't help but stare. How had things gone so obtuse for him? He'd been the one hanging off of Derek, hanging off of his affection and his seriously Ripley's Believe It Or Not perfect hair. Was he so easily replaceable?

  
Lydia hopped back off the elevator to get him right as a bunch of fellow interns gawked at Stiles, pointing in his direction and letting the whispers run rampant without shame or abandon.

  
"Yeah, mind your own business!"

  
By the time they got to the patient's room, Stiles was back to being numb. Numb was the best way to be in this situation. At least this way, he didn't have to feel. Looking and Derek and Julia together made him feel, and he just wanted to be okay again. And that all started with not feeling anything when he looked at them. He longed to get to that place, so that left him with step one: Stay numb.

  
Lydia began to present their first case, and Stiles was thankful for the distraction.

  
"Griselda Kimberlyn. Multiple surgeries with a history of heart disease. She's here for a beating heart quadruple CABG."

  
It was at this moment that Scott decided to grace everyone with his acute attendance, doing his best to conceal his entrance in the room. But for that to be effective, he'd have to have any other attending than Audra Bailey. Which didn't leave much room for error.

  
"You're late." Her tone was razorwire, and it was already stuck in Scott's teeth by the time it reached his ears.

  
"Yes, thanks for joining us today, McCall." Peter hummed, looking away from Scott with disdain and back to his secret girlfriend. "Alright, Martin, why are we keeping Mrs. Kimberlyn's heart beating during surgery?"

  
Suddenly skeptic about their plan, Lydia looked to Allison for a split second. She gave hert a subtle and swift nod, letting her know that she had to do this, act like she didn't know anything. Which was something foreign to Lydia because she prided herself on being the one with all the answers when it came to the medical field and being the best surgeon she could be. "I...don't know."

  
"WHAT?!" Ramsey couldn't hide her hurt and her shock, but Peter just raised his eyebrows as lightly as he could manage.

  
Forcily, Lydia reiterated with, "I couldn't begin to explain why."

  
Anger pouring out of her pours like it was hot tea, Ramsey looked over to Allison, who shrugged her shoulders.

  
"Oh, I don't know either."

  
"What is wrong with you two?" Stiles serrated his vow yet again, looking at his two friends like they were utterly mental and the ones going through the very breakdown they had accused him of enduring just minutes ago. "It's because--"

  
Without giving Stiles another chance to slip in an added word, Allison gave her elbow a new home in the side of Stiles' stomach, halting any further speech to spew.

  
"Ow."

  
Stiles barely even remembered that they had told him not to get attached to a case, and that must be why Lydia and Allison were both acting like the worst interns Ramsey had probably ever had the mispleasure of teaching.

  
Ramsey looked like she might implode in on herself, with enabled Peter to interject with an astonished, "Anyone else care to elaborate?"

  
Scott, feeling the need to redeem himself after the whole Heart in the Elevator fiasco, stepped up. He said, "Stress reduction because of the previous surgeries-" But was immediately cut off by Peter, who didn't want to hear his Comeback Kid schpeel.

  
"Lahey."

  
Scoffing, Scott verbally butted heads with the attending. "I clearly know the answer."

  
Cutting any hope of redemption off, Peter stared at Scott and said. "I'm not asking you, I'm asking Lahey."

  
Reluctantly due to the energy thriving in the room, Isaac cautiously did what was asked of him and answered with the right answer, eyeing his friends for their flippant dismissals. "The scar tissue is an issue. It's too deep and the heart's too weak to start up again. This way you only immobilize the portion you're operating on and you can leave the remaining parts of the heart on it's own."

  
Pissed, Scott didn't even wait. He left the room as Peter handed Isaac the chart.

  
"Welcome to the case, Lahey."

  
"Thank you, sir."

  
Allison and Lydia smiled to themselves and shuffled themselves and Stiles across the room. Ramsey eyed Peter and then followed them outside into the hallway, where Scott was waiting to bombard Ramsey with his incessant complaints.

  
"You know that what he's doing is bullshit. He's being completely unfair, and over this damn elevator thing!" Scott berrated.

  
Alrightly pissed, Ramsey felt no sympathy for him and gave none in her reply. Not that she had much sympathy for interns to begin with anyway. "You were late for rounds. Attendings don't like that. Matter of fact, residents don't like it either. Particularly this resident. Wanna tell me why you were late?" After a beat of not answering and Scott looking like a beaten bulldog, Ramsey sighed. At least he hadn't acted a fool in front of Peter, like the rest of her damn interns. "Nephew Hale needs an intern on his nerve case. Go get out of my face."

  
He did as he was told, which just left the three misfits for her to deal with. They started to inch away behind her back, but when she turned to face them, all she had to do was lay her eyes on them and they immediately knew they were in for it.

  
"You three."

  
"Dr. Ramsey--"

  
"What on God's green Earth has gotten into you to make you think that that was okay, hmmm? Embarassing me in front of your boss, in front of my boss. There will be no next time for that. There will only be your pager going off every time a nurse has a bowel obsruction, your name on every case that involves an aggitated and combative patient, and if you're really pissing me off, a tag on your goddamn toe in the morgue of this damn hospital. We clear on that?"

  
They were very ostentatious with their aplogies and words of it'll-never-happen-again that she just left them alone with the shaking of her head as Lydia and Allison dragged Stiles down a stairwell so that they could finally show him this marvelous thing that would vanquish the inner demons from their hellish cage in his heart and soul.

  
"Will someone please tell me what is happening here?" he asked of them.

  
"We have this case." Allison cheered.

  
"Just, you know, borrowed it from Psych. Stiles, the prelims on this thing? Skyrocketed crazy. They're like, totaly unprecedented. Never been seen before, okay."

  
A huge shit-eating grin on her face, Allison nodded with a, "And we have it."

  
"You mean stole it." Stiles said, clear on what they must have done to get this one of a kind case away from some Psych intern.

  
"Okay, fine. Stole, borrowed, sold to the highest bidder, whatever makes you sleep easier at night, that's what happened." Lydia squared herself as they made their way to a single door, the door that was going to change Stiles' mood and just maybe, their careers while they were at it. "Stiles, this is single handedly the most heart pounding medical mystery I have ever laid my eyes on."

  
Allison's hand hovered over the handle to the patient's room. "Now, you can walk away. No one would blame you for walking away."

  
"Right." Stiles agreed.

  
"Or," Lydia chimed in. "You can risk your spot in the program here at Seattle Grace and probably end up using your medical degree as a coaster and walk into this room with us."

  
"So...are you in?"

  
Mulling their words over in his head like a fine cider, Stiles took a second to think about it. There was no Derek to consider anymore, so what in the hell did he really have to lose at this point in his life?

  
Nothing.

  
Stiles smiled. "Fuck yeah."

  
Simmering with glee, Allison ripped open the door and the three of them made their way inside. And inside, was a man. There seemed to be nothing extraordinary about them man, as his back was facing the trio.

  
"Just a guy?" Stiles said.

  
"Wait for it." countered Allison.

  
"I'm so glad I'm off that Psych floor!" The patient, Shaw Omen, said to them. "Headed to the bathroom. AGAIN. Seems like it's every ten second anymore.

  
Stiles rolled his eyes as he looked to his friends as the patient made his way into the bathroom to relieve himself. "Literally just a guy."

  
"Wait for it." Lydia said again, this time way more stern than Allison had prior.

  
After finishing in the bathroom, Shaw came out of the bathroom to make the grand reveal as to why Lydia and Allison had gone to such great lengths to procure this patient from Psych and to get Stiles in on the action.

  
"I'm not crazy." Shaw said. Stiles looked in awe at the swollen stomach of his patient. There was no denying what it looked like, no denying as to what everyone thought was in there. Stiles looked to his friends with a dumbfounded smile as Shaw finished his decree. "I'm just pregnant."

  
x

  
A little later, Stiles was trying to get every detail out of Shaw while Lydia and Allison did their best to run all the reports that would essentially be covering their asses.

  
"I was perfectly normal until about a month ago," Shaw was explaining. "And then suddenly, I have this huge belly. My doctor said I was delusional, that I was just gaining some sort of sympathy weight with my wife." He nodded. "She's due on the 30th. It's our first."

  
"Congratulations." Stiles smiled, trying his best not to be taken aback as Shaw's shirt drifted up and revealed his stomach. He'd been looking at it for over an hour now and it was still taking his breathe away with every gander at the gullet of a man that looked like he was with child.

  
During this, Lydia and Allison were doing a couple checks on Shaw, feeling around his belly for confirmations yet again.

  
"The Psych intern barely did a fully fledged physical." Allison explained. "Lydia, feel that."

  
When she did, Lydia just nodded. "There's something there. It's not just fluid."

  
"Of course it's not just fluid." Shaw scoffed, annoyed with the accusation. "I can feel everything going on in there, you know. It's getting bigger in my, you know, like my womb." They all looked at one another, avoiding Shaw's gaze as he explained the impossible. "I know it's crazy, hell I know that. But I can also prove it to you."

  
"Alright," Stiles spoke to Allison and Lydia now. "The chart, where is it?" When he was met with a pair of dimming gazes, Stiles shrugged and scoffed in a very motherly manner. "You don't have his chart? Seriously? You steal a patient and don't even have the common sense to steal the chart too?"

  
Aggravated, Lydia turned to Allison. "That was your job, was it not?"

  
"Uh, no, I was on lookout."

  
So, naturally, it was up to Stiles to fix the mess his friends created. It wasn't long before they left Shaw's room and were setting up a sting operation outside the Psych office. Stiles was going to distract the Psych intern, a gorgeous Indian man with a beard ready to drive Stiles' lingering sorrows away, while Lydia and Allison snuck around and swiped the chart while Stiles was doing the aversion.

  
Starting the operation, Stiles knocked on the window of the office and Ahir opened it up, staring at him awkwardly.

  
"What's up, handsome?" Stiles crooned, oozing charm into every available syllable. "You having a pretty good day?"

  
Not knowing where this sudden interaction was coming from, Ahir wasn't exactly sure how he was expected to respond to the blatant flirting. All the while, Allison and Lydia were in the back of the office trying to get their hands on Shaw's file. "Do what?"

  
"You're looking good these days, you know." Stiles snickered playfully. "Seriously. Damn good."

  
"What?"

  
"We're friends, right?"

  
Ahir scoffed. "Oh really? We're friends? Then what's my name?"

  
Stiles' eyes immediately darted to Ahir's badge, because he honestly didn't really know his name. Ahir covered it up after detecting Stiles' sly attempt to pull the metaphorical wool over his eyes.

  
"Okay, fine. So I don't know your name." Stiles sighed, just as Ahir was getting suspicious and looked behind him, where Stiles' eyes kept lingering. Luckily for all of them, Lydia and Allison veered out of sight just as Ahir turned around, and that only left the Psych intern on further alert. "It's not like we can't talk thought. You don't have to like slicing people open for me to want to get to know you." Stiles let that last smile smear across his face a little longer than was needed.

  
Ahir snickered sarcastically, and gave Stiles an even look. "Really? Because it was my understanding that you were only interested in getting to know attendings."

  
And with that, Ahir slammed shut the window, leaving Stiles feeling completely shattered at his reputation.

  
Because it wasn't enough that Stiles had to deal with this by seeing Julia and Derek together. Everyone not only knew, but they wanted to rub it in his face that they knew. They wanted to ridicule him for being stupid enough to fall for an attending. And it was just too much.

  
So he was back to being numb again. He barely registered moving as Lydia and Allison lead him away and across the hospital. Stiles was stoic again, stone and marble that was unable to deterioate. At least, that was the plan. The plan, however, hadn't been to see Derek again.

  
Stiles kept his eyes on him, unable to look away but also unable and unwilling to say anything, to show any emotion on his face whatsoever. Lydia and Allison looked up from the chart just as Derek stopped in front of them. They each supportively grabbed Stiles' arm and hooked their own with his.

  
"Hi." Derek said, as if that was enough to spark the encounter with. But Stiles was a flame, already ignited. He didn't need any other kindling from the man that had broke his heart. "I mean...Stiles." Derek pushed further, but Stiles just closed his eyes, suddenly needing a break from the perfect vision of Derek, the sheer glimpse of him was painful, and he needed the break. "I was just hoping that we could, maybe, talk?"

  
When Stiles opened his eyes again, he gazed at him impassive like he had before. He wouldn't give Derek the satisfaction of a reaction from him. He didn't deserve to rile Stiles up and see the aftermath. He didn't deserve him after what he'd done.

  
Lydia and Allison took one look at Stiles, then each other, before facing Derek and simotaneously giving the attending a resounding, "No."

  
And they pulled Stiles away from Derek, away from the thought of him. Stiles kept up his Medusa face, kept walking in time with his friends. But a single tear slid past his eyelid and decorated his face in the name of Derek.

  
x

  
It wasn't until lunch that Stiles got a reprieve from the day. They'd already confirmed that Shaw wasn't pregnant. Of course, it wasn't easy for Stiles to endure this process, because Julia herself was the one to confirm it. She was still trying to figure out exactly why Shaw was exibiting the pregnancy symptons and causing him to flare up positive pregnancy tests, but just being in her presence was electrotherapy for Stiles, and lunch was finally the padded room that he needed to rest in.

  
Just then, Isaac joined Stiles, Allison, and Lydia at their usual lunch table and slammed his tray down, eyeing them all incredulously.

  
"Pregnant guy!?" Isaac berrated. "You failed to tell me that you guys had a pregnant guy?"

  
"Well, if you want a seat in the gallery, it's fifty bucks." Lydia smiled.

  
"Seriously?" Stiles said, breaking away from his tar drenched thoughts. "You're selling seats and we aren't even sure what's happening with him. Don't you think you're exploiting this a little?"

  
"Hey, whatever it is that's inside of him, it's coming out." Allison countered his conscience. "We're just trying to...benefit from his tragedy."

  
"For science." Lydia nodded.

  
"Right, for science." Allison agreed.

  
Stiles just shook his head, watching and laughing as Scott began to wheel a patient up to their table, seemingly joining them for lunch. The rest of their friends enjoyed seeing the look of annoyance and defiance radiating off of Scott.

  
"Don't start with me." Scott said.

  
"What's going on here?" Lydia snickered.

  
"I'm his get back in the OR for free card." The patient, Ricky, said.

  
Lydia guffawed at her candor. "I like her more than you already."

  
"Are you volunteering or something?" Isaac asked innocently.

  
"Literally don't ask." Scott rebuked.

  
"As if any of us could tell what's going on inside that miniscule brain of yours anyway." Allison stated, half under her breath and half not at all.

  
"Got something you want to share with the table, Al?" Scott said, annoyed that she was already letting her self-spoken guard of moving on down at the slightest of inconvenience for her.

  
"Literally don't ask." She repeated his own words back to him, much to the glee over everyone at the table.

  
Ricky, whom was definitely paying more attention to the surrounding area than the rest of them, pushed her dark hair behind her ears before she said, "Are you guys like the MVP surgeons or something around here?"

  
"What gave you that impression?" Stiles snorted sarcastically.

  
"Oh, just the fact that everyone in this place seems to be talking about you."

  
Sure enough, eyes. In every direction. Lips, at every table. No one had anything better to talk about. Not medicine, no their families and how fucked up they had made each and every one of them. Just rumors. Talking, gossiping, spreading lies and half-truths and hurtful slurs.

  
And Stiles knew that every single one of them bore his name.

  
x

  
It was finally time to see just what Shaw was harboring there in his stomach, and both Allison and Stiles were grateful for the mystery to finally be lifted from their veil accustomed eyes. The CT tech was very into the "thing" that was living inside of Shaw. So much so, that he'd taken part in a hospital wide ring of bets.

  
"You're taking bets now?" Stiles sighed. "Is that really necessary?"

  
"Well," Allison, ever the attention deflecter, went on with, "We know it's not fetus or fluid, so..."

  
And then, the images came up. Weird, images of the "thing" inside of Shaw that had...

  
"Are those teeth?" Stiles winced, tilting his head to get a better read of the scans.

  
Allison and the CT tech both agreed, that that was exactly what the images looked to be containing. Stiles felt sorry for Shaw, about how he must feel like a spectacle. And also what it was like when you felt this thing inside you that everyone around you was talking about. Only for Stiles, it wasn't a mass with mini teeth and mini hair. It was his broken heart.

  
Snickering, Allison printed the images for the chart before eyeing Stiles with a very serious, "Lydia is going to be beyond pissed that she missed this."

  
x

  
Lydia was beyond pissed that she was missing Shaw's scan. Literally so fucking done with all these pages from Nurse Todd that she honestly considered swallowing the damn pager just to cease it from ringing. But she had to answer them, simply because Ramsey was hanging around everywhere she went and not even Lydia was feeling brave enough to ignore a page with her hovering nearby.

  
She found Todd outside of a patient's room, one who was so clearly vomiting up his entire life's story in the form of foreign bile. A look of disgust dove pinpricks in Lydia's expression as she found Todd's eyes.

  
"You can't be serious."

  
Todd simpered joyfully, practically clicking his heels in euphoria. "I was told to find you and only you if I had something of this nature pop up."

  
"Only me? By who?"

  
"All I can say is you must have really pissed off the wrong person today." Todd thrusted the empty tub in his hands to Lydia, and made her take it from him.

  
As he walked away, Lydia noticed Ramsey down the hall. Staring at her. Almost, looking at her. Almost saying that she knew what Lydia had done to deserve such a terrible job. And that's when it hit Lydia.

  
Ramsey knew about Peter.

  
She finished up with her pukey patient as fast as she could actually muster, especially with Ramsey being so close in proximity when she was so clearly the bearer of her bad day. Once she was finished, Lydia made her way to find Peter to tell him the bad news, the horrific news, the literally-our-lives-our-over news that was sure to shatter them back into the metaphorical closest that they had already been slipping in and out of since their relationship began.

  
Lydia found him at the OR board, like usual. She'd come to notice that staring at the board, admiring the board, calmed Peter in a way that Lydia wasn't sure she quite understood yet. But it was something she loved about him, envied about him, that he could still find a calm amidst all the muk in both their professional and personal lives.

  
Quietly, she made her way beside him, and let it pass her lips. "Ramsey knows."

  
Confuzed by her rapid appearance and strange open to conversation, Peter just replied with, "What?"

  
"She knows."

  
There, she watched as it finally hit him. Only it didn't hit him in the manner that she had been attending. It hit him like a fly would land on his arm, not like a meteor crashing his car like what she was currently feeling.

  
"Oh." Oh. That damn flippant Oh. If Peter being able to find a calm within himself was something Lydia envied, the thing she absolutely loathed was how nonchalant he dismissed the chaotic moments when they needed to be acknowledged. "I mean, Lahey already knows, so what's the big deal if Ramsey joins the party?"

  
It wasn't a geniune quesiton, it was mocking. Like he was annoyed with her for allowing Isaac to find out their little love secret. "Look, I'm sorry about Isaac, he just sort of overheard it. But you didn't tell her?"

  
"Why would I do that, Lydia?" he belittled.

  
"This isn't good." she said back.

  
"We can handle this." Peter assured her. "But we have to get in front of it. Which means we need to go to the Chief."

  
At first, Lydia couldn't tell if he was being serious or playing a practical joke on her. Telling the Chief? Was he insane? Had staring at the OR board calmed him down so much that he was actually hallucinating?

  
"No way. Absofuckinglutely no way."

  
"Lydia, it's the only way."

  
"It's the only way to ruin me, Peter."

  
They were going to exchange more, but then Deaton walked up at started to look over the board. "Evening doctors."

  
"Chief." They both said, with Lydia adding, "Thank you for your help, Dr. Hale."

  
"You're welcome, Dr. Martin."

  
Both of them left the Chief confused, which is exactly how Lydia herself wanted to keep things.

  
x

  
Back in Shaw's room, things were getting a little hectic. Actually, that was way too tame for what this was. This was a full on circus. Not even a circus, a production. People were taking pictures, wanting to get in on the phenomenon of the "pregnant" man that wasn't really pregnant, and everyone wanted a taste of the tragedy. Stiles was really started to get pissed off about the entire situation, and it looked as if both Shaw and his wife, whom had finally joined them after getting off work, were feeling the same way.

  
"A mesenteric teratoma, Chief." Ramsey was explaining to Deaton, who was reading over everything in the chart, clearly amazed.

  
"In an adult male no less!" Allison added, way too chipper for Stiles' taste too, given all Shaw was being put through.

  
"How is this possbile?" Deaton said.

  
"Don't ask how, be grateful to have witnessed it." Ramsey beamed, clearly giving in to the hysteria. "There's large bilobed cystic lesions."

  
Allison nodded. "With a solid calcified structure."

  
"A deformed mandible." Deaton said in awe, buying into everything that the cameras and extra intern posse was alluding to. Shaw actually winced when Deaton asked to see his stomach, but reluctantly felt pressured enough to obilge.

  
"Labs show elevated HCG levels that explain the false positive on the pregnancy test." Ramsey explained.

  
"Does that mean it's malignant?" Allison suggested, to which Ramsey nodded postively.

  
Stiles wasn't hearing any of this. He was too focused on how this was affecting Shaw and his wife. They looked absolutely horrified by all the attention, and the Chief was only now barring the other interns from looking on, and closed the door from other interested eyes.

  
"Are you okay?" Stiles finally said to Shaw. "You're looking more than a little overwhelmed, which you have every right to feel." He looked up to Deaton then. "I think they need a little space, Chief."

  
Deaton cleared everyone not needed in the room, sending the interested nurses and Psych interns away then as well, making sure that the patients were alleviated of their star quality a little bit.

  
"Thanks," Shaw stated to Stiles. "It's just that everyone is talking at us instead of to us."

  
"And all this medical jargin..." his wife added.

  
Allison piped up at that. "You have a teratoma, which is really rare in adults."

  
"Hence the popularity." Stiles smiled, trying to ease their shaky stances on doctors and all things medical. "It's just a cell mass that's been a part of you for probably you're whole life."

  
"Except now, it's growing." Allison decided to jump in again.

  
"So I've heard. Jawbones, clumps of hair." Shaw shook his head. "I've heard everything. It's just again, I'm feeling like more of a subject matter than an actual patient."

  
"They're not talking to you." Stiles nodded. "Just about you. I know what that's like."

  
Stiles ignored the sympathy glance from Allison and begged Ramsey to let them have a few damn minutes to themselves. Finally, Stiles won and Shaw and his wife were left alone. Now if only Stiles could get the same treatment, today might not turn out to be the sick joke that it had been building up to all day.

  
x

  
Meeting on top of the roof for dinner wasn't exactly a good spot to have dinner with your wife. At least, not to Derek, who was more afraid that Julia was going to pitch him off the hospital for taking a lover in Seattle after fleeing from Beacon Hills what felt like years ago. But he noticed that Julia had picked up the best Chinese in town, despite her not knowing her way around the city, and it caused him to smile as he sat down with her for their little rooftop picnic.

  
It felt weird. Because they'd both been with other people in their marriage, sure, but even more so, Derek felt weird not being with Stiles. Being with Julia was swaying in a hammock, all comfort and netting. Safe. Right. But being with Stiles was setting yourself on fire just to feel the rush of water when you were doused. Raw. Passionate. Also right.

  
Maybe he'd find passion with Julia again. They used to be super passionate together, but of course, that was before she'd had her legs in the air embracing the phallus of his best friend.

  
"It's not as nice as picniking on top of the Empire State Building, but it'll do." Julia said, taking a bite of her moo shu pork.

  
"Even with a nice view of the Seattle skyline, you find something negative." Derek meant it as a joke, but he assumed it came off a little cold. Especially by Julia's reaction.

  
"Seriously, Derek, is there anything you find even remotely lovable about me anymore? Because if you think this is a mistake, giving us another chance, than just let me know now."

  
"I like that you're trying." Derek was really trying to. Trying to forget Stiles and try to be with his wife again. "I'm sorry. I'm just glad we're living in Seattle and trying."

  
Julia scoffed. "I don't live her. Not yet."

  
She was giving Derek a stipulation for leaving Beacon Hills and relocating with him here in Seattle. One that Derek was also really trying to succeed in.

  
"Julia--"

  
"Are you going to stop talking to Stiles?"

  
He sighed. "Yes. I will."

  
"When?" She didn't even pretend to believe him. "Tomorrow? Next week? Next year? Come on, Derek."

  
"Maybe I'm not ready just yet, okay?" He was done with this dance, so much that he finished chewing his lo mein and put his container on the ground.

  
"When will you be ready, hmm?" Julia was playing with fire, and she knew it. But maybe this was her way of trying to feel something again, for trying to get them to feel something for each other again. Though Derek didn't think this was quite the way to go about it. "Will you ever be ready, Derek?"

  
"What if I say no?"

  
Julia scoffed. "Then I'm not moving to Seattle."

  
"And so we're back at our crossroads."

  
Derek didn't want to fight, didn't want to argue. But letting go of Stiles was hard, probably the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life. How was he supposed to do it? Let go of the one thing, the one person, that had finally made him feel...right again?

  
x

  
Walking up the stairs, Lydia was over it. Over being called for rectal exams, throw up victims, compacted bowels, and everything else she didn't have the time for or the desire to endure professionally. Ramsey was sending her on the worst patients she could find, just like she'd promised to them after failing to answer Peter's questions this morning. She was doing exactly what she said she would, and Lydia had had enough.

  
Predictably, Peter was found back at the OR board. But he was the one to steer the dialect before she even had a chance to.

  
"Dr. Martin, we never finished our conversation from earlier." Always keeping up their front. What was the point now that Ramsey knew and was putting her through hell?

  
"Sure we did." Lydia told him. "We decided that we're not going to you know who about you know what."

  
"We decided?" He mockingly laughed. "You think this is the worst of it? Think about how bad it will get when the Chief hears about it through hallway gossip instead of straight from the source."

  
Exasperated with this day and with Peter, Lydia let out a little yell and said, "He doesn't have to hear about it at all!"

  
"But he will, Lydia, that's my point. These things always get around." He looked sullen all of the sudden. "If this is because of something else--"

  
"Like you not thinking this through?" she seethed.

  
"Like you not wanting to commit to this relationship whatsoever."

  
"Peter--"

  
"Enough."

  
He started to walk away.

  
"Peter, we're a couple."

  
"Fine."

  
But he was still walking away. And Lydia let him. Because her pager went off again.

  
She was so over this. And she was ending it.

  
Standing up to Ramsey wasn't something many people did, or even tried to accomplish. She was renowned for her snark, for her bite, for her venom. And those who stood up to her rarely seemed to last long after they attempted to do so. So for Lydia to even think about doing it, let alone actually do is, showed the gusto she had to end this unspoken feud between them.

  
Ramsey was charting at the nurse's station, barely even registering her presence when Lydia walked up to her.

  
"I heard Uncle Hale's patient's heart caught on fire in the middle of surgery." Ramsey said, not even bothering to look up from the swipes of her pen across the chart. "Did you see it?"

  
Lydia stirred a little more, until Ramsey looked up at her before she actually spoke. "I am the best intern you have, the best intern you've probably ever had, and you are wasting my talents on the likes of bile and bowel because, what, because you're into being petty?" Lydia wasn't losing momentum now. If she was doing this, she was going to be a corvette with severed brakes. "I deserve to be in on Shaw's surgery because I found this surgery. I stole this surgery!"

  
Ramsey didn't even look like she was upset at Lydia's stance. In fact, she really didn't look like she knew what Lydia was even trying to acheive. With raised eyebrows, Ramsey asked, "What are you going on about, Martin?"

  
"You. Punishing me." Again, Ramsey stuck with her confused defense. "You haven't been paging me all day? The nurses have been giving me these awful--"

  
That's when the nurse behind the counter, who happened to be the very same nurse that Lydia had ushered out of Shaw's room when he was trying to prove the positive pregnancy tests, cleared her throat.

  
"You could have saved yourself a long day, Dr. Martin. By, you know, being a decent person back in Mr. Omen's room."

  
And then, the nurse victoriously walked away, leaving both Ramsey and Lydia agasp.

  
"Pissing off the nurses?" Ramsey laughed. "Stupid."

  
x

  
After his little rooftop escapade with Julia earlier, Derek was even more temped to talk to Stiles. Just to see where he was at. How he was coping, if he was coping. Derek knew that he had possibly destroyed him, but he just wanted to know for himself that he was okay.

  
So when he saw Stiles charting by the nurse's station later on, he decided that now was the time to ask. He conjured up enough courage to actually propel him towards the younger man, only to be stopped by Ramsey.

  
"Walk away." She warned, stepping out from the hall, but not looking up from her chart, which was honestly an admirable skill in Derek's opinion.

  
"From what?"

  
Then, she did look up at him, and the adamancy in her eyes made him wish she hadn't. "From my intern."

  
"I was just--"

  
"Yeah, I know what you were 'just'."

  
"But I--"

  
"No." She said, this time more finitely, putting her chart down on the nearest surface so that she could really look at him. "You don't get to do this, not anymore, Derek. You lost the right."

  
She was right. More than right, she was putting it kindly. Derek had cast Stiles aside, and there was nothing he could say or do that could make that right again. But it was something that Derek felt he needed to do, making sure Stiles wasn't as broken as Derek himself felt.

  
"I...I just want to ask if he's okay."

  
"Don't ask!" Ramsey raised her voice, but not enough to alert the nearby Stiles, who was busy putting the finishing touches on Shaw's chart before going into surgery. "He's not okay. He's a human traffic accident and everyone is slowing down to look at the burning debris." Ramsey did the rarity of softening her features to plead the case for one of her interns. "He's doing the best he can with what he has left, with what you left him. You'll only make it worse. Walk away. Leave him to put out the fire."

  
How could he be resistant with words like that? Stiles deserved better, needed better, than to be treated like this. And it killed Derek that all of this was by his hand. Or rather, the failure of his hand to meet those damned divorce papers. Slowly, too slowly, Derek walked away from Ramsey, and from Stiles.

  
He hoped he would never have to leave him again.

  
x

  
Now that Stiles was finished charting away in Shaw's file, that meant that Shaw and Regina would have enough time to relax before the surgery. Only, when Stiles made his way to his room, that wasn't what either Regina or Shaw were feeling.

  
Because when Stiles opened up the door, he saw Allison and Lydia taking money from interns that had gone rabid with the sight of Shaw and his teratoma, claws eager to glide over the flesh of Shaw's metaphysical womb. Some of them were actually poking it with their fingers, and Stiles saw himself. Stiles saw himself as they exhibit and people were tapping on the glass, banging on the glass, trying to break the glass of his safe haven, his protective bubble. He'd been subjected to it ever since he and Derek have finally ended things. And he would be damned if he let that continue to happen to Shaw.

  
In the loudest, angriest voice he could take on, Stiles began to shriek at the room collectively. "What in the hell is going on here!?" Immediate silence met the room, and Stiles was glad that he had everyone's attention. "Everybody, out! Everyone get the hell out of this room!!" A few of the spare interns began to plead their cases, but he wasn't having any part of that. "OUT! Mr. Omen, is a patient! A patient who's sick and embarrassed," He paused to look at Regina and Shaw, who looked on with gratitude over what he was doing for them. That was all he needed to push on. "And tired of being stared at!" He looked then to Allison and Lydia. "You two. This isn't the city zoo! GET OUT. EVERYONE. Get out!" As they started to make their way to the door, Stiles didn't let up, now addressing everyone again. "If you want to point and whisper and look at me, go for it! What's stopped any of you from doing that already?" He feigned hurt. "Oh look at Stiles! Isn't he sad and pathetic and heartbroken. Maybe he's gone mental, maybe I have! But leave Mr. Omen alone!" Now, almost everyone but Lydia and Allison were in the room, Stiles still pushing them towards the door. They tried to plead forgiveness, but he just went on, saying, "You should be ashamed of yourselves."

  
And then they were out of the room, and Stiles shut the door behind him. His friends knew better than to stick around, and the group dispersed from his sight when he made it way out of the room. And, because why not, who should show up at a time like this but Derek? He looked over at Stiles, and Stiles wasn't holding back for anyone right now.

  
"And what in the hell are you looking at?"

  
There was a second of shock on Derek's face as they stared at one another, but then Stiles walked away and left him like that, left him alone, which was a nice change of pace for once.

  
x

  
After Stiles' public crucifixion, Lydia roamed the halls until she saw Peter walking down the mezzanine hallway. She didn't waste any breath after she walked up to him.

  
"Yes, I'm worried about my career, and my reputation."

  
He rolled his eyes and almost walked away, but he turned back around and let her finish. There was such a seriousness to her eyes when he looked into them now, such a determined finesse over her face.

  
"I will not be Stiles Stilinski." Lydia fought her emotions. "I will not fall apart. I worked my ass off to get here and people will not make allowances for me."

  
"This isn't about that."

  
She sighed. "Everyone will know about us."

  
"That's the point."

  
When she didn't say anything, he scoffed and just walked away. When she looked back up, she saw that he had actually walked over to the nearby office, which so happened to be the Chief's office. Wide-eyed, Lydia locked eyes with Peter as he silently told Deaton about them. Angry and done, Lydia spun on her eyes and sulked in her emotions.

  
x

  
Everyone found solace at Joel's bar across the street, as every doctor at Seattle Grace so often did, and Stiles' friends were no exception. Allison, Lydia, and Isaac were already there, drinking and numbing the pain of the day as Allison counted her cash from Shaw's surgery bets. Joel just shook his head at all of them over even taking bets in the first place.

  
"No wonder Stiles yelled at you." Joel laughed as he cleaned a glass.

  
"Well, we deserved it." Allison nodded. "Definitely deserved it. But I sold 485 dollars worth of tickets to the surgery."

  
Slyly, Lydia just agreed. "Yeah. 485."

  
Allison gasped, smiling. "You sold more?"

  
Taking out a huge wad of cash from the back of her jeans, Lydia slapped the money on the bar counter and said, "Oh yeah, babe."

  
Isaac and Joel laughed, Allison joining in as she shook her head. "You know that you have no control, right?"

  
"She has too much control," Stiles said, making his presence known to the group. "She'd be the perfect politician."

  
Lydia thought on it, grabbing her money to put it away. "Maybe I would."

  
Then there was silence, everyone reeling from Stiles and his black hole-ness and outburst of anguish throughout the day. Even Joel gave him a sympathetic free shot of tequila.

  
"You guys really have nothing better to talk about than my sorry excuse of a love life, do you?" Stiles smiled bitterly, but also in a way that let his friends' know that he forgave them for their earlier faux pas.

  
"Nope."

  
"Not really."

  
"Unfortunately no."

  
They all shared a brief laugh when Scott walked into the crowded bar. He spotted them and immediately stood behind Allison until their laughter died down and she finally noticed him.

  
"What?"

  
Unable to access the right words, Scott just stood there for a minute, mulling over the words he'd been trying to say to her about why he hadn't kissed her that night of their date, why they weren't working as just being friends, all of it.

  
"Scott, I didn't ask--"

  
And then he just leaned down, and swept her into a kiss. And not just any kiss, a suave, romance novel, stirring in the pants kind of kiss that had all of their friends fanning themselves mentally, unable to look away.

  
When the kiss finally ended and Scott guided Allison back to the correct position in her seat, Scott smiled and said, "Literally don't ask."

  
And then he nodded to Stiles, who just saluted him silently with a smile, and left the bar so Allison could mull the whole thing over.

  
"Seriously." Lydia said.

  
"Seriously." Allison agreed, knocking back her shot of bourbon as the laughter started up again, Isaac coughing up half his beer.

  
And that's how Stiles wanted to keep his life. With his friends, laughing about their misery, and hopefully, just maybe, finally trying to get over the literally perfect thing he used to have with Derek.


	8. The Basement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles struggles to get Derek out of his head as Lydia and Peter endure their first official date together, Ramsey is keeping a secret from the Chief, and Isaac is infatuated with a patient that survives a five-story fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. It's been forever since I've updated this. I'm sorry! Writing the follow up to my first novel and working full-time has been consuming me lately, but I recently felt the need to churn out another chapter and get in my Sterek feels, so here's the byproduct of that! I hope you enjoy, and if you'd like, you can check out my novel for free!
> 
> Sever by Jesse Grey - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/731428

Stiles already had a feeling that this was going to be a day full of promising struggle. It wasn’t just the massive zit on his forehead either. It didn’t help that a car pulled right next to his Jeep, and who was it? Other than joyfully jubilant Julia. She even had the decency to wave at Stiles, which just made it all the more harder to…well, not get jealous over that the fact that Derek had chosen her. But Stiles waved back, half-heartedly because he didn’t know another way out of the interaction, and then Julia was on her way. Stiles also noted that, despite his bad luck this morning, Julia was arriving at the hospital _alone_.

Perhaps there was trouble in perfected paradise.

At least he wasn’t alone there. Between trying to make the most out of what was left of his relationship with his father at the home and dealing with both of his parents’ reputations while trying to navigate through the residency program, Stiles had enough to deal with. Which is why he didn’t need to be hanging on to hope.

Sighing at himself at even possibly thinking he still had a chance with Derek, Stiles slapped the hideously adorable Paw Patrol Band-Aid on (Ignoring the fact that he had no idea why he had even bought the licensed Band-Aids while on the way to work) and preceded to make his way into work for the day.

Stiles made his way into the incredibly crowded elevator. And just as he was turning around to face the doors, he spotted Derek in the back of the elevator. Of course. _Of course_ he was there. Derek was everywhere, at every moment, at any place Stiles seemed to be. Stiles really wanted nothing more than for Derek to be _anywhere_. The only thing worse than pining for Derek from afar was being forced to do it up close.

A patient and her boyfriend were talking quietly amongst themselves within the elevator. “It feels awful, Trip, literally like my insides are being gouged out for sport.”

Trip looked at his girlfriend with a mash-up of sympathy and annoyance. “Daria, I really just think it’s food poisoning. Honestly.”

“It was one clam!” Daria exclaimed, feeling very differently than her boyfriend. “It’s not just food poisoning. Wait,” She looked back to the handful of papers that bore her grasp. “Hold up, where’s billing?”

“The basement.”

Stiles eyes met with Derek’s in the reflection of the elevator doors. They had both answered together, in sync, harmoniously together. Like they finished each other’s sentences. The only thing they finished now was…well, nothing. Their eyes finally broke apart, because Stiles couldn’t stand to look at him any longer. And looking into the eyes of his Paw Patrol character in the reflection, Stiles knew that today was already going to be a day.

x

Ramsey roamed the halls avoiding the Chief today. Not because she was mad at him, or because she was in love with him like her interns were all in love with each other or someone else who smiled at them one morning or any other stupid reason. Ramsey had her reason, and it involved avoiding the Chief.

But he found her anyway, and it spoke to her with such a vibrant smile, it actually pained Ramsey to think about avoiding him all day. But she’d be doing it regardless.

“Congrats!” Deaton said, that smile unwavering and full of sacrament.

“Do what now?” Ramsey came off a little bitter, but then again, she always did. But usually not with her mentor.

“Your fellowships!” Deaton beamed yet again. “Five offers. Five applications. Do you understand, Ramsey, how rare that is?” His smile seemed to simmer off the walls, and Ramsey was holding back the bile behind her reason. “This is your year, Audra. Everyone wants a piece of you. But you know, Seattle Grace, of course, has the best program there is.”

Distracted, Ramsey just muttered, “Yeah, of course, of course.” She walked away from him, needing to start the avoidance as soon as possible.

But he followed like a loyal Labrador. “You _are_ taking my offer, right?” Deaton questioned with the perfect twinge of guilt that ate away at Ramsey’s defenses.

“I don’t…I haven’t made a decision on any fellowship yet, sir.”

That’s how she left him. Confused and pondering on what her words held, what they meant. And she herself wasn’t exactly sure. The bile from before wasn’t just from her reason, and it was sickeningly wetting her insides as she cleared the view from him.

x

Lydia was loving how things with Peter were going, because things were actually going _somewhere_. And tonight was there first real date, as a real couple. Sure, Lydia was still bottling up the annoyance she had over Peter telling the Chief about them, but she was finding other ways to punish him. Like during sex. It made for very, very, intense orgasms.

She left the coffee cart on the side of the street, and met back up with Peter a few feet away. They were walking together on their way to work, and somehow, it made them feel like they were part of a real couple for the first time. Lydia handed Peter the coffee and they shared a smile before each taking a sip of their lattes.

“Tonight’s date night.”

As they began walking, Lydia looked up at him with a question mark knitted between her eyebrows. “It’s definitely a night, that harbors a date, yes.”

“You forgot.”

“Of course not.” She did. Well, she did up until she woke up this morning. But Peter didn’t need to know such details. “Tonight’s date night.” She agreed.

“Do you want to cancel?”

“No.” Lydia laughed, locking arms with him and further sipping her coffee.

“Good.”                                                                 

Laughing slightly, they further walked together to the hospital. What they didn’t know was that Isaac was also walking to work, walking behind them. It was weird for him to see them be together so openly, since he had been the one to discover their secret romance in the first place. But it made Isaac smile. He was glad his friends were finding love, or at least in Lydia’s case, intense like. First Scott and Allison were making up in pretty big ways, and now Lydia was flaunting her newfound balance with Peter around the hospital. That just left Stiles and himself. They were quite the pair, Heartbroken Stiles and Lonely Isaac. They were like the beginnings of the saddest crime fighting duo to ever hit the page of a comic. Except everything for them involved scalpels, and they loved the sight of their hands covered in blood.

Isaac took one bite of the bagel he had bought on the way to work and it fell to the ground. He cursed his luck and went to pick it up and kept walking. But then his keys fell out of his pocket, and he had to move further down the sidewalk to retrieve them. And that’s when he heard it. A massive, bone splattering splat that sounded off right behind him. And when he turned around, he saw a man that wasn’t moving.

x

“He fell five floors?”

And he was still breathing. The guy that had nearly flattened Isaac and could have potentially killed them both was still alive. Isaac was assisting on his case in the ER, being completely frantic as they wheeled the man into one of the trauma rooms.

“Obvious open tib/fib fracture but otherwise okay.” Ramsey said, amazed and dazed by the man’s fortune.

Isaac suddenly got even more ecstatic, taking off his stethoscope. “Ramsey, he has equal breath sounds. After falling five stories, he still has equal breath sounds!”

Just then, because Ramsey wasn’t at all believing that Isaac could handle being on this case alone, given his personal attachment to surviving the man’s fall himself, Lydia came hurdling into the room upon Ramsey’s bequest.

“Lydia, do you wanna hear what a miracle sounds like!?”

“Lahey, that’s enough.” Ramsey rolled her eyes, turning to an already over it Lydia. “Martin, would you be so kind as to palpate his abdomen before Lahey professes his love for the man?”

“Seriously, people!” Isaac said. “I could have died, he could have died. This is a good day.”

Ignoring the intense idiocy raining out of Isaac’s mouth, Lydia went over to the patient to oblige Ramsey’s earlier out roar. “Does this hurt everywhere?”

The patient, Art, just shook his head. “Not really.”

“You fell from the sky,” Isaac stated energetically, a rattled infant with free reign, having to step into the fold of the conversation. “You fell from the sky and you barely injured your leg!”

“Isaac,” Lydia tried to chastise, but honestly seeing Isaac this wound up was a thrill.

“Don’t you try to ‘Isaac’ me. If I had hung back even a few seconds, he would have crushed me!”

Rolling her eyes, Lydia set her sights on doing just that for the patient. “Alright, we’re rolling on three.”

With some assistant, they successfully rolled Art onto his side, which revealed tapered feathers and caked blood along his back. Ramsey took one look and wished she hadn’t, making a noise of disapproval at the clear former bird remnants.

“A pigeon,” Isaac said, that sparkled instnalty returning to his eyes. “My life was saved by that brave, brave pigeon.”

“Lahey, I’m two seconds away from kicking you off this case,” Ramsey sighed. “Let’s order some x-rays, and please, someone look for the rest of Bye Bye Birdie.”

A metaphorical tear in his eye, Isaac bent down and looked at Art’s back, whispering lovingly to the mirage of feathers. “Thank you.”

x

Thankful to have his mind on a case and off of Derek, Stiles was working on his patient, Alma, while her doting husband Orson sat by her bedside. They were an adorable older couple, and Stiles couldn’t help but smile while he tried to administer her some antibiotics.

“I’m so glad I convinced her to come down,” Orson was saying. “Alma wanted to wait until tomorrow, but I had this feeling…”

“You _always_ have a feeling, darling. I’d be surprised the day you _don’t_ have a feeling.” She smiled at him warmly, getting one just as full of warmth in return.

Grinning again at their adorable exchange, Stiles pipped up by saying, “Mrs. Rogers, you have something called acute cholecystitis, which means your gall bladder may need to come out with a simple surgery.”

A furrow in his brow, Orson said, “Alma has gall stones?”

To which Alma just rolled her eyes, flicking her wrist at Stiles. “He watches cable for a week and thinks he’s a doctor.”

Stiles, feeling at ease, just laughed. “I’m giving you IV fluids and antibiotics to cool the gallbladder down before I call Dr. Ramsey and see if the OR is the best place for that organ. Do either of you have any questions?”

Instantly, Alma squinted her eyes and gave Stiles a smirk. “Darling, what happened to your forehead?”

Mortified, Stiles just shook his head. “Nothing.”

x

It wasn’t until they were at the nurse’s station that Stiles heard about the morning both Lydia and Isaac had been having, and, as expected, at least for Lydia, Isaac was still going on and on about the near-death experience.

“Honestly though, shouldn’t Art be, like, _way_ more excited? I don’t know if it’s shock or low adrenaline or what, but I would be starting my memoirs.” When both Lydia and Stiles just gave him a look, he sighed and went on with, “Things happen for a reason!”

“Of course they do,” Stiles scoffed. “My super-hot ex-boyfriend relocates his wife to Seattle. Reason: to ruin my personal _and_ professional life all in one go.”

“Stiles, I’m serious.”

“So am I,” he scoffed again.

“Okay, what’s with the Paw Patrol on your head?” Lydia critiqued.

He shook his head, a ragdoll forgotten. “I really would rather not.”

“Fine.” She looked back to Isaac. “Can I sign out to you early?”

“You don’t want in on Art’s surgery?”

“Can’t, have a hot date, remember? And Peter is making this a really big deal, so I have to prepare.” She squinted in annoyance. “Plus, I’ve just spent the better part of an hour picking bird remains out of the man’s back. I’d say I’ve maxed out on fun.”

“But we need to seize the day! Miracle day, people!” Isaac was really trying to rally, but it just wasn’t working.

“I have a massive zit on my forehead and I’m starting to look how I feel.” Stiles said. “Miracle that.”

With even more gusto than before, Isaac said, “This is the luckiest moment in our lives!”

Rolling her eyes before walking off, Lydia argued. “Tell that to the bird.”

They all moved to the locker room, where they were all watching Lydia try on her various dressed for her date with Peter. Allison had finally joined them, and was quick to inform them of the case she’d been assigned with Scott. After dealing with Lydia’s outfit crisis, of course.

“They both look insanely hot.” Allison cooed.

“Of course they do,” Lydia nodded, looking at herself in the mirror, the purple dress showing off her body perfectly. “ _I’m_ wearing them. I’m always hot. But which one is the _right_ one?”

“Why does it matter?”

“It just does.”

“She’s right though,” Stiles wagged his eyebrows. “You do look hot.”

“I’m hot in my sleep, Stiles.” She quickly peeled off her purple dressed and replaced it with a blue one that was even more painted to her womanly figure. “Maybe this date is a mistake.”

“No, the mistake is not living and breathing in that dress.” Isaac said, getting the approval of the rest of their friends. “Seriously, Lydia, _that’s_ the one.”

Scott came into the room then, catcalling at Lydia, whom just accepted the dress as the perfect one for her date with Peter. “Damn, Martin, look at you.”

“Don’t look too long, McCall. This isn’t for you.”

He feigned hurt, before turning to Allison, nodding. “The mastectomy is scheduled. I get to play with the plastics fellow while he does a TRAM flap reconstruction.”

Allison shook her head. “I just don’t know if I could do it.”

“Wait, back up, who’s getting a mastectomy?” Stiles asked.

“Cymberly. Or maybe I should just call her ‘Elliott’s wife’,” Allison rolled her eyes.

“Who?”

Allison shook her animosity, and replaced it with sympathy, which felt really weird to Stiles before she opened her mouth and he found out why. “Derek and Julia’s best friends from California.”

Scott looked over him with viable sorrow. “You didn’t hear about that?”

He blocked it out. If it had to do with Derek, he couldn’t hear it. There were already too many voices in his head whispering Derek’s name, and longing for his fingers along the rides of his collarbone, or his lips across the field of freckles trapesing around his chest. Ugh, he was seriously having a really weird day, and he was beginning to fully blame the children’s show Band-Aid on his forehead.

x

Stiles was ever the more grateful to be in the OR. The beautiful, mind-numbing OR. He was glad to be operating on Alma’s surgery with Dr. Ramsey. Anything to keep his mind Derek-free, like he was a toxic sludge in his body that Stiles desperately needed excavated. Stiles was just hoping Alma didn’t have Stiles’ luck.

“Alright, Stilinski, what’s next now that they adhesions are down?”

“Place the graspers in to life the gall bladder so we can dissect it out.”

“Very good, and what exactly are we looking for in Calot’s triangle?”

“Cystic artery.”

“Even better.” But just as quick as Ramsey’s pride shone, it faded behind a dark cloud. “Hold on. Stiles, what do you see right here?”

He sighed. Alma definitely had her own version of toxic sludge. “Porcelain bladder.”

“That’s definitely not better for Alma.”

Soon enough, they were walking toward her husband while Alma was recovering from the dark cloud of a surgery. He stood up expectantly to greet them, as always, with a smile.

“Is everything alright?”

Ramsey gave Stiles a quick look before regarding her patient’s husband once more. “Mr. Rogers, there were some calcifications when we extracted your wife’s gallbladder.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” He shook his head with newfound frustration.

“It’s often a sign of gallbladder cancer, sir.” Ramsey told him. “We’ve already sent it off to Pathology.”

Orson stood there for a second, not really looking at them. Almost like he was looking through them, like he was picturing the life he had built with his wife, and their future together, only to have this sharp scythe ready to take it all away when they weren’t looking. Stiles knew what that was like. He’d been feeling it ever since his father had gotten sick, and more recently with everything happening with Derek. Orson’s head twitched for a second, and he was back to looking into their eyes.

“You’re sure she has cancer?”

“We won’t be sure until the results from Pathology come back, but it’s looking that way. We can make Alma more comfortable, but she’s going to need more tests to see what’s next for us to do. We could even need to do more surgery.”

“Will the surgery save her?”

“Her cancer looks to be advanced. There are palliative surgeries that we can do, meaning surgeries to help with the pain, but it won’t cure her.”

Orson, distraught and devastated, shook his head and closed his eyes. “How long does she have, doctor?”

“From what it looks like, I’d say four to six months. I’m really sorry, Mr. Rogers.”

Ramsey placed a hand on his shoulder while his mourning set in. It wasn’t long before Ramsey started to walk off. Stiles had never seen Ramsey so…emotionally connected to a patient before, so soft in her speaking. It was a nice change that made Stiles smile to himself. He started to follow in Ramsey’s direction, but Orson grabbed his arm to halt him.

“I don’t want Alma to know.”

Stiles was a little shaken. “What?”

“You can’t tell Alma she’s dying.”

“You…you don’t want her to know?”

“Please don’t tell her.” There were tears in his eyes, and Stiles already knew that he was going to cave. “She’s happy. We’re happy. Let me take her home. I don’t want her to be at the basement level of her life when we’re the happiest we’ve ever been. Please. Alma doesn’t need to know.”

Staring into Orson’s eyes, and replaying that line about being at the basement level of your life, really struck a chord with Stiles. He placed a hand on Orson’s shoulder like Ramsey had before, and he nodded.

x

Sitting next to his patient in the Pre-Op Ward, Isaac was still as giddy as ever about his miracle patient. Art was waiting for surgery, and Isaac just wanted to again bask in the ambiance of his carpe diem guy just a little bit longer. But just when he was about to open his mouth, Art cut him off.

“Please don’t. For the love of God, please. I can’t take any more of your miracle this and miracle that crap. I don’t want to be called a miracle.”

Isaac rolled his eyes. “But that’s what I don’t understand. You’ve been acting like you didn’t survive this massive, crazy, miracle status of a thing! I was right there, I could be in this room waiting for a surgery with you! I’m so thankful and I’m not even the one who fell. The sky is bluer, food is tasting better than it ever has before, which is saying a lot considering our cafeteria. I’m not the one who survived a five-story fall!”

Art looked away from Isaac, looking upset. And that’s when it clicked. Isaac stopped the writing on Art’s chart and looked over at him, where there was a darkness that Isaac hadn’t noticed before, or rather, a darkness he hadn’t seen since he’d been too busy looking at his own life’s light.

“You jumped, didn’t you?”

x

At the neon haze outside the restaurant, Lydia smiled as she walked inside with Peter. This was it. Their first official date. And so far, so good. They’d made out in the cab on the way here, and Peter’s hands were all over her and clearly enjoying her choice of dress for the occasion. Isaac had been right. This blue dress was definitely the one.

They quickly found their table and sat down, looking over the menus. While she mentally decided on her entrée, she looked around the table for something, something that she needed that was missing and she was having no part of it.

“Where’s the butter?” Without looking up from his menu, Peter picked up and presented the bottle of olive oil, waiting for her to grasp it. But he’d be waiting a long time. “Uh, no. That’s olive oil. I want butter.”

His eyes connected with hers, and he saw the intense slits he’d become so accustomed. He set down the bottle, nodding, and Lydia smiled a little, knowing that Peter was wrapped around her finger. Or rather, he wanted to be wrapped around her wonderful dress.

Their waited came up to the table them. “Shall I send the sommelier over?”

“Oh no, thank you.” Peter told him, smoothing out his gray suit, which for Lydia, did wonders for his physique. “Maybe a nice Bordeaux?”

“Ew.” Lydia cringed. “I want a nice oaky Chardonnay.”

Both the waiter and Peter just baited for a second, then her date said, “But Bordeaux will be better with the steak.”

“I’m having lobster.” She said sternly, then pinched her eyebrows together. “You…eat red meat?”

“You don’t?”

They stared at one another, then back at their waiter, who was seriously giving them a look that said, “do you two even know each other?” and Lydia was starting to wonder if she’d been right the whole time. Maybe this date was an utter failure of a mistake.

x

In the elevator, Stiles was rolling his eyes as Isaac smoothed out a map of the hospital on the side of the elevator. Luckily, they were the only ones in there so he had the room to do so. Isaac had told Stiles this grandiose plan, of how he was going to track down Art’s lost love who happened to work here at the hospital, bring the two of them back together. He clearly felt for the man who had apparently jumped from the building he’d been on this morning, and Isaac, being the dope of a romantic he was, was trying to usher out a happy ending.

“You really think that finding this girl, some girl Art once had a massive crush on but never went through with it, is going to make up for the fact that he jumped off a building this morning?”

“I’m just trying to make things better for him. He was telling me about her, about Petal, and it seemed to make him feel better, the idea of seeing her again.”

“Okay, what kind of name is Petal?”

“Didn’t you have a patient with the name Cobra? And are we forgetting Barbie?”

Stiles shifted his head. “Point taken.”

“I just think if she knew how he felt, maybe something could happen, even if it’s just a hello before his surgery. I think that could be the miracle I thought his fall was. I’m just trying to hold on to the fact that miracles really do happen.” He stopped overlooking the map and squared up with Stiles. “Plus, I thought you’d love this, seeing as you’re also a romantic.”

“Hmm, _was_ a romantic. As in past tense.”

The elevator stopped, and the doors slid open. And like the wonderful, cosmic order of the universe, who should step into the elevator but Derek fucking Hale? Stiles did his best to avoid contact with Derek, but their initial glance made the attending smile. As Stiles looked away, he felt Isaac’s eyes on him, despite his still struggling with the hospital’s map.

“This elevator seems to always carry the same passengers,” Derek smiled again, gesturing to Stiles Band-Aid. “Love the Paw Patrol, by the way. Cutsy, joyful blue.”

Thankfully, Isaac perked up, so Stiles didn’t have to answer. “Okay, Petal works in Billing, where is Billing?”

Just like early, just like always, Stiles and Derek answered together. “The basement.”

They locked eyes, and Stiles couldn’t help but linger in that gaze. He couldn’t tell what Derek was thinking, but all he could think about was how bad he wanted to kiss those lips, how awful this separation was on his soul, and how much he wanted Derek back in his life as easily has Derek had once been in his bed. But before he knew it, Derek broke the gaze, and Stiles was left with the cold stare of the elevator, and the dark cloud of his life thundered above him once more

x

Back at the restaurant, Lydia was assured that this date was going awful. She had barely had any conversation with Peter, that wasn’t loosely based on work. And by the time their food had arrived, they’d completely eaten in silence. Maybe they didn’t have anything to say to one another. They spoke at work all day every day, they had sex all night every night. Maybe that’s all they were to each other. Where was the excitement? Where was the surprise? Where was the rush?

“You know, maybe we should skip dessert.” Peter said. “I have…uh, I have a really early surgery.”

Sighing mentally, Lydia just nodded. This date was DOA. “Yeah, sure.”

But then at nearby table, A man was walking back to his date when he completely collapsed. People were making a lot of noise out of shock, and his date started to scream for help.

“Is anyone here a doctor?”

Lydia and Peter locked eyes, both of them getting super ecstatic. “Yes!”

They ran over to the man who had fell, and rushed to assess him as best they could. While Peter looked him over in his expert way, Lydia looked to someone nearby, not really knowing if they worked there or not. “Call 911.”

“What’s wrong with him!?” his date cried.

Peter ignored her, looking to Lydia. “Pulse?”

She nodded. “Rapid and unequal.”

He raised the man’s hand, sprawling out his fingers for Lydia to inspect. “Look, the length of his fingers…”

“He’s got to be, what, 6’4’’?”

Then it dawned on them, and they looked into each other’s eyes before the spoke in unison. “Marfan’s.”

“What do his fingers have to do with anything?” his date spoke in uneven waves.

“He’s showing classic markers for Marfan’s syndrome.” Lydia nodded.

Peter continued with, “It means the walls of his blood vessels are weak.”

“And you can tell that just by his hands?”

“What can I say? We’re that good.” Peter took a second to glance at Lydia and smiled. She gave him one back, but she then looked worried.

“We need that ambulance.”

“Fast.” Peter nodded. “He could be opened up here and then we can get him to the OR.”

“Before his aorta ruptures?”

“What are you two going on about? Who are you people?”

Her question was interrupted by the paramedic’s bringing in the stretcher for the fallen patient. Soon enough, Peter was rushing with them while Lydia took a second to get her phone out and call ahead for them.

“This is Dr. Martin, Dr. Hale and I are bringing in a dissected thoracic aorta. We need an OR ready and a CT cleared.” She rushed to find Peter and found him waiting outside the ambulance with the paramedics.

Peter looked at the last remaining paramedic as they loaded the man inside the ambulance. “Continue high flow O2. Start another large boar IV. Transport him sirens and lights to Seattle Grace.”

The paramedic huffed. “And who the hell are you?”

Lydia scoffed, stepping forward. “He’s the cardiothoracic surgeon who’s going to operate on him.”

Peter gave her a smile, looking all too pleased with her reaction and their night in general. “And she’s with me.”

x

In Art’s OR, Isaac was there to give him the bad news. Dr. Ramsey was scrubbing in, so he only had a few seconds before she came in and dismissed him and Art was put under.

“There he is!” Art smiled, the first smile Isaac had seen him wear all day, since talking about Petal. “Did you find her?”

He had, but she hadn’t wanted to see him. Isaac didn’t even get a chance to explain to Petal all that Art had gone through. She refused to see him after how their relationship, or lack thereof, had ended. But it was going to break Isaac in two to see Art’s heart break. So he did the only thing he could do, hold on to a miracle for a little bit longer.

“They told me she’s on vacation, Art. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, that’s okay! She probably went up to her parents.” He laughed. “Up in New Hampshire, Petal loved it up there! I’m sure she went to visit them, she never gets to anymore.”

Isaac just nodded and smiled, as the anesthesiologist gave Isaac the heads up that they needed to start. “Maybe you can meet up with her after your surgery, when you recover and she gets back in town.”

“”Yeah, maybe! Thanks for trying, Isaac!” They started to put Art under, and he was fading fast, talking in short bursts as he got out his last sentence before going under. “I really can’t thank you enough.”

As soon as he was under, his monitor started going off. Ramsey entered the OR and Isaac looked at her in a panic. “What’s happening? Dr. Ramsey, what’s happening!?”

“Lahey, start CPR.” As he did what he was told, she looked to another doctor in the room. “Push Epi.”

And then, just like that, Art was gone. Isaac was absolutely shaken as they walked out of the OR, Ramsey by his side.

“What the hell happened to him?”

“There’ll be an autopsy, Lahey.” She sighed. “Some people, they just get on the table and die. There’s no rhyme of reason, they just die. There’s no controlling it.”

“But he fell five stories and only had a broken leg. It doesn’t add up. He survived so I could reunite him with Petal and then she didn’t even want to see him, so what was the point?”

She shrugged, sighing again. “The cosmic joke of the universe, Lahey.” They had made their way out of the OR hallway and back to the OR board on the floor. “Now go do something else.”

He parted and just as he did, Stiles came bounding up to her.

“Dr. Ramsey.”

“Ugh, what? What is it? I’m tired.”

“Sorry, it’s just that Mr. Rogers doesn’t want me to tell Alma that she’s dying.”

Her eyes about gouged out of her head. “You haven’t told her yet!?”

“I was just—”

“You are _her_ doctor, Stilinski. Not his. You are in charge of informing your patients of their status so they can make the decisions that they need to make. Go tell her! Now I’m hungry, tried and pissed off. Move!” She ushered him out of the way, mumbling under her breath about incompetent interns.

As Stiles walked off, he walked past another OR where Lydia and Peter were scrubbing in on the surgery from dinner. They were looking on from the scrub room as they prepped Crash for his surgery.

“You see the Echo from here?”

“Dissection isn’t subtle.” Lydia nodded.

“Did you see that wingspan? And the pectus carinatum?”

“Forget that, what about his palate!?”

“The very definition of high arched.”

Lydia smiled, finishing up her scrub. “Best date ever.”

He finished up too, and they laughed their way into the OR. They stepped up to the patient when Peter said, “Well, technically, we didn’t really get our date.”

“Seriously? That was the best date I’ve ever been on.”

Only a surgery interrupting a date would catch Lydia’s heart. And Peter was all for it as they smiled at each other from behind their masks and started their first of many surgeries together.

x

Ending her hunger, Ramsey was in the staff room eating a delectable piece of chocolate cake when Deaton walked in. Angry, he shuffled his entire body when he sat down at the table with her. She ignored him, too over everything to respond to this action, which caused him to do the worse thing in her mind: talk.

“They’re wooing you, aren’t they?”

She really didn’t have the patience for this. “What?”

“Your fellowship? Chicago Central, LA Med. They’re wooing you. I mean, you’re looking at the offers, you’re looking at the numbers for the bonuses, I get it, but you’re letting yourself be wooed.”

“Chief, it’s really—”

“And I don’t blame you! Go be their hotshot! Go be their best resident they’ve ever had.” Now he was angry and sentimental, which was the absolute worse combo to Ramsey by far. “How could you do this?” He stood up, looking around the room. “You’re my protégé, Audra. I’m just a little hurt here. You’re gifted, but you’re ungrateful after everything I’ve done for you. I’m just saying, our fellowship here at Seattle Grace—”

She had to cut him off, because she really couldn’t do this anymore. “I’m pregnant, you blubbering idiot.”

Shell shocked, Deaton stuttering to find his words. “You’re what?”

“I’m burning 3000 calories a day. My heart rate is 110. I’ve got indigestion and gas. My legs are swollen. Did you know that carrying a boy in your uterus means you burn ten percent more calories than if you had a girl?” She let the rage flow into her voice. “Guess what I’m having!?” Her voice returned to normal, which for her, was a low snarl. “I try for seven damn years and a month before my fellowship, the damn stick turns blue.” She looked up at him. “I’m not leaving you, I’m pregnant.”

“Oh.” After all that, he wasn’t sure what to say. “Congrats?”

“Leave.” He went to do just that, knowing Ramsey too well to defy her, even if he was her superior. “And bring me a damn strawberry milkshake while you’re at it.”

x

Stiles was just finished up with Alma, biting the bullet and telling her about her diagnosis. Luckily, Orson was gone for the moment, so they had their alone time so Stiles could break the news.

“And we can treat it with chemo and surgery but…”

“No, no.” Alma said. She wasn’t crying, but she did look really, really displeased, as if something else was on her mind. “We’re supposed to go to Venice at the end of the month. Have you heard the story?”

Smiling at how she seemed to be taking this, Stiles shook his head. “I haven’t.”

“They say if you ride a gondola underneath the Bridge of Sighs, you’re together forever.” Her own smile broke then. “You haven’t told Orson, have you?”

“What?”

“Orson’s always feared that I would go before him.” She played with her hands. “You didn’t tell him, right?”

Stiles couldn’t stop himself from scoffing. “You don’t want him to know?”

Alma did her own scoffing, seeming to really take up his cues in pairs. “You’re young, too young. I don’t expect for you to wise up to my sort of thinking, darling.” Her smile returned, but Stiles didn’t share this one.

“But you can’t have a relationship built on a lie…can you?”

“Oh, darling, it’s not a lie! It’s our future. We’re going to Venice and getting in that beautiful gondola, even if I am dying. I’ve been with the love of my life for sixty years. What better life could I have asked for?”

Tearing up, Stiles gave Alma another smile. Just once in his life, he wanted someone to love him like that. Even worse, he’d thought he’d found it, in Derek, and it had been taken away from him. Thoughts of love and Derek and bittersweet memories lingered in Stiles head as he made his way back to the elevator to hit the nurse’s station before heading home for the day. He rode in the elevator in silence until it stopped, opened, and once again, let Derek slide between the doors.

This time, neither of them speak. It seems like Derek had a really hard day, and Stiles really didn’t want to add to it. But he looked up and saw Derek in the reflection of the elevator, leaning against the back on the elevator looking so forlorn, and so defeated. Derek looked up to, locking eyes with Stiles, but keeping his mouth shut. That intense stare lasted longer than it had all day, but Stiles broke it to stare back at the elevator doors. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t fall back into the trap that was Derek’s eyes. And even as he struggled to stay quiet and ride the elevator, he knew he couldn’t just leave this like it was.

“Dammit,” he said to himself, turning around and staring right at Derek, right into those beautiful eyes that’d been haunting his dreams ever since their split. “I’m the basement, Derek. I’m at the basement level of life, bottom of the totem pole, the last rung on the ladder. I’m the basement and yet…” He took one step closer to him, close but not nearly close enough. “And yet, I just really miss you.”

He lifted off the back of the elevator then, perking up a bit at this raw, spontaneous admission from Stiles. Slowly, he straightened up and inched behind Stiles, so close that their breathing started to sync together, and Stiles closed his eyes as he waited for the kiss, the kiss he’d been longing for.

But it never came to fruition. He pulled back just as Stiles opened his eyes, seeing him inch away just as the elevator stopped and the doors pulled themselves apart, like Derek was doing to them just now.

“Stiles…I want…” He stopped himself, shaking his head and breaking their eye contact. “I can’t.”

Without another word, Derek barreled out of the elevator, leaving Stiles to turn and watch him leave. Eyes trembling with emotion at how stupid he had been, stupid enough to lay out his still palpable feelings for Derek out there in the void like that, Stiles watched the doors close and felt the steel of their close as if they were closing on his heart.


End file.
